Weird paedophile used animal puppets to groom young girl before travelling 200 miles to Leeds
A warped paedophile used animal puppets to help groom a young girl then travelled more than 200 miles from his home to Leeds to meet her.
But Mark Jones was met by a paedophile hunter group who had lured him with the decoy profile of a youngster.
He was jailed at Leeds Crown Court this week.
The 53-year-old had latched onto the profile in January of last year with the supposed girl telling him from the outset she was 14.
He quickly turned the conversation sexual, asked for pictures of her.
Jones offered to buy her a horse, referred to the pair of them as “lovers” and bizarrely sent videos of himself conducting puppet shows as a ventriloquist asking the girl to sleep with him.
Days later he bought a £135 train ticket to travel from his home on Ninian Park Road in Cardiff, Wales, to Leeds with the aim of meeting the girl.
He was confronted by the hunter group after his arrival in West Yorkshire. He was found to be carrying condoms, viagra and the stuffed puppets.
Jones has four previous convictions but none for sexual offending.
He admitted attempting to meet a child after grooming, attempting to incite a child into penetrative sexual activities and attempting to engage in sexual communications with a child.
Mitigating, Edison Flint said Jones lived a “very isolated life”, has no social life and spent all of his time with his pet dog.
He said there was no sophistication to his offending and that he was even expecting to stay with the supposed girl at her parents’ home.
But Judge Ray Singh said a psychiatrist assessment report showed Jones “had no significant mental health issues”.
He jailed him for three years. He was also put on the sex offender register for life and given a life-long sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) to allow his internet use to be monitored.