Disabled OAP loner groomed 'teenage boy' online

Loner David Francis Rust, 71, began chatting to the 'youngster' in March last year, which turned to be an undercover police officer, prosecutor David Bradshaw told Leeds Crown Court.

Mr Bradshaw said Rust "groomed" him, believing him to a young teenager, gradually turning the conversation to sexual suggestions, sending him a photo of a penis and asking him "do you like the picture?" then told him he wanted to "get into his pants".

The conversation went on for a month, before officers went to Rust's home address at Warren House, on Kirkgate, Wakefield, to arrest him.

He admitted what he had done immediately.

He admitted a single charge of sexual communication with a child. The court was told that Rust had one other conviction, a sexual offence from 1990.

Mitigating, Satpal Roth-Sharma said Rust said he had not been seeking children specifically online, but had been living a very lonely life, and had no friends or family.

He has mobility issues and needs a mobility scooter to get around.

Judge Mushtaq Khokhar told him: "It's clear from the conversation that you had that you were grooming him.

"You're a loner who does not have any friends or contact with relatives and most of your time is spent in the house on the internet."

He gave him six months' jail, suspended for two years, and ordered him to enroll on a sex offenders programme.

He must also sign the sex offenders registers for seven years, and gave him a seven-year sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) to limit his internet use and allow it to be monitored.