Jail for internet ‘groomer’
A man described by police as ‘the most prolific paedophile “groomer” ever convicted’ has been sentenced to five years in prison for the attempted abduction of a teenager.
Douglas Lindsell, from Twickenham, south-west London, pleaded guilty at Kingston Crown Court in August to gross indecency towards a girl under the age of 16, making indecent images of children and two counts of sexual and threatening harassment of a girl.
But he pleaded not guilty to a further attempted abduction of a girl under-14 and two charges of gross indecency towards teenage girls.
Lindsell contacted young girls via internet chatrooms pretending to be a teenage boy. He kept detailed notebooks on the girls and contacted them using emails and mobile phone text messages.
The 64-year-old befriended 54 girls in Britain and 18 more throughout Europe.
The father-of-two then arranged meetings with his victims and molested them.
Police discovered eight indecent images of children on his computer.
After being arrested, Lindsell admitted to trying to contact many of his victims and ordering them to delete his email and text messages.
Police are urging any other victims to come forward.
Sentencing on Thursday, the judge placed orders banning Lindsell from contacting girls under the age of 16 and contacting any of his victims and placed him on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
