A law graduate paedophile encouraged 150 children to engage in sexual activity through gaming sites used by children and teens including Roblox.
Owain Thomas, who was working as a paralegal, paid '400 Robux', the in game currency of Roblox, to a 10-year-old victim 400 Robux they would perform a sexual act while on webcam.
The offences involved 150 children including 60 aged under 13.
Prosecutor Matthew Cobbe said the defendant had previously approached brothers outside a primary school and said: “I dare you to show me your dicks. Come here and I will show you mine.”
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Wales Online report that court at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard that this was when the offending came to light after Thomas approached two children in the street.
Police intervened following a complaint from their mother.
The boys walked away and Thomas approached them again, showing them a sexual image on his phone.
They told their mother, who contacted the police and officers traced the defendant using CCTV and his car number plate.
Police attended his home on November 11 and he cried as he was arrested, saying: “I need help. I know I need help. I can’t go to prison, I won’t cope in there.”
Officers seized devices including his phone and laptop, which contained software allowing him to pose online as someone else and record footage of whoever he was talking to.
At that stage he was found to have incited a number of children to engage in sexual activity, but Mr Cobbe said: “It was several weeks before the full extent of the offending became clear.”
The court heard his former partner found his hard drive under the kitchen sink and that also contained indecent images.
Mr Cobbe said the police viewed 175 hours of footage.
He added: “Analysis demonstrates that the defendant is a determined and committed paedophile.”
The court heard he spent an “extraordinary amount of time using platforms including Facebook, FaceTime, Skype, Minecraft and Roblox to contact children.
Prosecutors said the software he was using allowed him to pretend to be a young child and he pretended to be both boys and girls, using fake names.
He sent a message to one victim saying: “I dare you to show me your thingy. Lol.”
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Thomas told children in a group chat: “Let me see me your butts.”
And he said to another victim: “It’s just experimenting. It can be our little secret. No one will know.”
He sometimes pretended to be more than one child in a conversation.
Mr Cobbe said: “The child victim would find himself caught up in contact with multiple people egging him on. It was just this defendant.
“On some occasions he was prepared to pay the child for a sexual act. He used the children’s online game Roblox as a method of persuading the child to get involved.”
The court heard Thomas was cautioned in October 2012 for possessing indecent images of children.
The 29-year-old, admitted 158 counts, including causing or inciting children to engage in sexual activity and distributing indecent images of children.
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Mr Taylor said his client had no previous convictions, but accepted: “There was a hidden and dark side to Owain Thomas.”
He drew the judge’s attention to letters from the defendant and his father.
The court heard he was “very isolated” at school, where he learnt to play the harp and enjoyed singing.
He studied law at Aberystwyth Universityand was planning to sit exams to become a barrister.
He worked for more than one firm in South Wales as a paralegal, but has now lost his job and his partner.
Mr Taylor said the volume and seriousness of the counts was “possibly unprecedented”, adding: “I have not been in a case involving this number of counts and so many victims.
He accepted: “He used pressure, threats and financial incentives to corrupt young people into doing things they otherwise would not have done to satisfy his own depraved sexual needs.”
The barrister suggested his client’s “paedophile interest” was “like a drug”.
He told the court his client has sought help from the Lucy Faithfull Foundation.
Judge Richard Twomlow said he spent an hour and a half viewing the footage and referred to the “sheer scale and nature” of the offending. The case of was adjourned for sentence at a date to be fixed.
