IFAMar 10 2017

IFA convicted of sexual grooming

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IFA convicted of sexual grooming

A financial adviser who was snared trying to meet a 15-year-old girl for sex by a group of vigilantes known as the ‘Internet Interceptors’ is facing jail today (10 March).

Jonathan Hunt, 41, set up a profile on the internet site Badoo with the profile ‘looking for a pretty girls to date. Will treat you on dates and make you feel very special xx…’

He began chatting with a girl called ‘Holly’ whom he believed to be 15-years-old, telling her she was attractive and asking if she was looking for a date.

Hunt did not realise he was in fact talking to Sarah Doherty, a 36-year-old member of the ‘Internet Interceptors’.

He offered to take her for lunch and take her shopping, promising her he earned ‘loads of money’ and that he could buy her things.

Between 8 and 14 September last year his messages to her became more sexually explicit, and he repeatedly tried to arrange to meet her.

In their first conversation, he wrote: ‘Hi Holly x what are you looking for? Your photos are beautiful. Are you looking for a date?’

She replied ‘Yes, I’m from London. I am 15-years-old, just on hear talking to a friend I bet you don’t want to chat now.’

He replied ‘HaHa I’d think my age would put you off not the other way round’ and commented that she looked 18 rather than 15.

Hunt had stated that he was 46 on the site, rather than his real age which is 41.

‘Holly’ repeatedly confirmed that she was just 15-years-old, and that she couldn’t stay up too late because she had school the following day.

He replied: ‘Haha of course. Would you date me though? I’d love to.’

Hunt – who runs his firms Cedars IFA from his home in Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire - coaxed the girl into exchanging details about where they lived.

He told her ‘Still don’t believe you are 15 but gorgeous either way’ and ‘Would love to date you some time. Just in case I forgot to say… you look really lovely xx.’

He asked her about her school and where it was, although she refused to tell him, and asked for a selfie in her school uniform.

Hunt repeatedly asked her to send him selfies, and when she told him the camera on her phone was broken he offered to buy her a new one.

He offered to take her shopping because he earned loads of money, saying she could ‘check out some clothes’ and model them for him.

‘Best of all if I could sneak into the dressing room with you… then I could see you try on some clothes … and see you take them off,’ he wrote.

‘I bet you look gorgeous without clothes on xx.’

He also sent her a picture of his car ‘What’s a good car without a beautiful girl to sit beside you whilst you drive?’

Hunt was apparently aware that he could be being trapped by police or vigilantes, asking her once: ‘I do have one little worry… are you really real?’

He added: ‘You know, older guy talking to 15-year-old girl… can be jailbait lol, sorry, true though. Even if I did start off thinking you are 18.’

As the messages became more sexually explicit, he wrote: ‘Would turn me on to see you lying in your bed. I bet you look so sexy… you’re very attractive. Wish I was lying next to you right now looking into your eyes. Would be so intimate.’

He followed up with lots of graphic messages about what exactly he wanted to do to her.

Apparently realising how far he had gone, the following day he said he still wanted to meet her but they shouldn’t have sex, saying: ‘You’re only 15. It would be a crime’.

Hunt eventually arranged to meet the teen at Plumstead Station at 1pm on Wednesday 14 September 2016 – the middle of a school day.

He was confronted by Ms Doherty – who filmed their exchange until police arrived.

Hunt denied one count of attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming, claiming he only wanted to 'date' the girl and not have sex with her.

But he was convicted after trial at the Old Bailey on a majority verdict.

When asked about comments he made about the girl looking ‘sexy’ in her school uniform, he said: “At the end of the day I’m flirting with her – to suggest that I would find her more attractive rather than any other sort of dress is taking it one step further than necessary.

“I shouldn’t have done it. And when I look back on it I regret that but at the time I just wanted a date and in my approach to that date I was just trying to make it happen.”

Hunt, of Rickmansworth, Herts, was convicted of attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming.

He will be sentenced on 27 March.