A paedophile who tricked children by pretending to be a model scout on the internet in order to sexually abuse them has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
David Harmes, a 27-year-old man from Winsford, Cheshire, has confessed to committing 88 sexual offenses against 45 children, who were between the ages of six and 15, from July 2019 to February 2020.
The CPS said that the children were told to do sexual things on camera, which he filmed.
Harmes found his victims on social media and tricked them into coming to him.
In Chester Crown Court, it was said that lots of inappropriate pictures and videos were discovered on his computer. Additionally, there was a written plan he used when first talking to people on Instagram, TikTok, or Snapchat. He would pretend to work for popular clothing companies.
The writing stated: “My name is Jess and my job is to find people who could be models. ” We are searching for girls who are between the ages of 10 and 14 to assist us in introducing our new spring collection. I believe you would be just right for this opportunity.
“The online test lasts for 10 minutes and if you succeed, you will receive £1,200 as a reward. ”
‘Twisted desires’
Over a period of six months, Harmes pretended to be different people like Jess, Jaden, Alex, or Jadenthelad to trick his victims. This information was given by Cheshire Police.
The recent crimes happened shortly after he was let out of prison in 2019. He had been previously convicted for similar sexual crimes where he pretended to be a famous singer in order to trick children on the internet.
The CPS explained that he would convince his victims, who were mostly girls except for one boy, to install an app that allowed them to have video calls with each other.
He always kept his camera off and used software to capture and save everything that appeared on his screen.
The detectives recognized him from the pictures because of his unique sheets and also from a video where he accidentally showed his face while opening his laptop briefly.
After the punishment was decided, Jiro Asafa, from the CPS, stated that Harmes was a person who committed many sexual offenses and posed a great danger. Harmes manipulated children’s dreams and goals in order to satisfy his abnormal sexual urges.
He didn’t care about how the children felt. If anyone spoke out against him, he would threaten to expose videos he had taken of them to people they know.
He said that the victims were forced into a world for grown-ups that they didn’t understand and didn’t know what they were being told to do.
The picture shows a hand using a laptop keyboard.
Det Supt Simon Draco of Cheshire Police said the police really want to make sure parents and carers understand that they must know what their children are doing on the internet to keep them safe from dangerous people like Harmes.
Harmes went back to prison because he broke the rules of his order for people who have committed sexual offenses on 8 February 2020.
He admitted that he did bad things like having, creating, and taking inappropriate pictures of children. He also convinced a child to do sexual things and did sexual things around a child. He shared private sexual pictures to purposely upset others.
In addition to being sentenced to 30 years in prison, he also received a special order to prevent him from causing sexual harm and will be required to sign the sex offenders’ registry for an indefinite period of time.
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Winsford’s paedophile pretends to be model scout online
