This is the moment a pervert pensioner was confronted by "paedophile hunters" after a string of child sex offences.
Thomas O’Halloran, 72, from St Helens thought he was in contact with a 12-year-old girl and two 14-year-olds when he started messaging children on social media and WhatsApp.
He told the youngest he felt "horny" and also sent her a video involving a woman performing a sex act on a man, before telling her to delete it.
READ MORE: Paedophile cut from children's lives after string of child sex offences
He then asked when she would be alone so he could send her further pornographic videos.
But little did he know he wasn't speaking to young girls, he was actually being trapped by the ‘Fleetwood Enforcers UK’, a voluntary sexual offenders hunting group.
The group creates decoy profiles with an image of young girls - which are actually edited photographs of a female group member - which they send if requested.
After gathering evidence since July 3 the group created a file of evidence before conducting a 'sting' on July 15, when they confronted O'Halloran on Facebook Live.
The video went viral and was viewed 112K times and was shared by 8.7k people.
On the video he speaks to the paedophile hunters about how 'he got caught' and 'knew it was wrong' whilst drinking a cup of tea. He was then taken away by police.
From July 3 O'Halloran engaged in sexual communication with a decoy posing as a 14-year-old girl.
The father-of-three referred to sexual activities and referred to himself having sex with another 14-year-old girl and sent a picture of a clothed 14-year-old girl saying he had had sex with her and he discussed "upskirting".
Two days later he communicated with another decoy posing as a 14-year-old girl and said she was "gorgeous" and said he wanted to hug her.
From July 8 he engaged in sexual communication with a decoy claiming to be 12-years-old, saying she was gorgeous, beautiful and attractive and referred to her as "sexy".
Mr Grant said O’Halloran warned her not to disclose the communication to anyone, saying he felt "horny" and discussed what he wanted to do with her and also send her a video of a woman performing a sex act on a man which he told her to delete.
All communication ended on July 14 and the group created a file of evidence and on July 15 conducted a "sting" operation where a member of the group confronted the pensioner at his home.
When interviewed he admitted the communications but said he was not attracted to underage girls and denied having sexual intercourse with any underage girl, said Mr Grant.
Jailing him for 12 months the judge, Recorder Ian Unsworth, QC, said he had pleaded guilty to three serious sexual matters.
He said the contents of his conversations with the ‘girls’ "were not only lewd but wholly inappropriate and could properly be described as grooming".
Recorder Unsworth pointed out that O’Halloran had not stopped his behaviour himself, it had been terminated when he was confronted by the voluntary sexual offenders hunting group.
And he said the case "was clearly aggravated by your express instruction to someone you believed to be a very young girl to delete that recording".
O’Halloran pleaded guilty to three offences involving attempted sexual communication with the first 14-year-old and the 12-year-old to obtain sexual gratification and attempting to cause the youngest girl to look at an image of sexual activity.
Stella Hayden, defending, said O’Halloran only has one previous offence which involved indecent exposure for which he was fined in 1985.
He has three adult children and until the offences came to light he was in almost daily contact with them but they are now estranged from him, as is his family in Ireland.
The judge ordered O’Halloran to sign on the Sex Offenders Register for ten years and imposed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for the same length of time.
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