Army veteran who fought in Falklands tried to meet 14-year-old boy at KFC

A former soldier who served in the Falklands and the Gulf War arranged to meet a 14-year-old boy at a KFC after grooming him online. Nottingham Crown Court heard how, in messages ahead of their meeting, Melvyn Gilbert asked the boy if he woke in the morning sexually aroused.

The 68-year-old also offered to pay for trips to the cinema, asked him if he “got turned on” when he showered after playing sport and referred to him as his “surrogate son”. But when the defendant arrived at the fast food takeaway in Long Eaton to meet the teen, “Kyle” was really a group of self-styled paedophile hunters.

Then, while on bail for that offence, Gilbert used the alias “Daveyboy2020” on a gay dating website called “Fab Guys” which was a breach of his agreement on the sex offender register.

Handing him a three-year community order, Judge Julie Warburton said: “I have heard about your time in the army and the impact this has had on you and I have read a psychological report and a pre-sentence report and you still, to an extent feel something untoward happened in that you feel you were ‘scammed on Facebook’.

“In my view that means some work needs to be done and you need to be challenged about accepting your actions and the impact this type of behaviour could have had as this could have been, and you thought was, a real child. Any parent would, frankly, be terrified about what might have happened to their child.”

Prosecutor Esther Harrison said the offending took place over a period of around a month between the middle of August and September last year. She said the hunter group, called TFN, set up the Kyle profile and Gilbert and the teen began exchanging messages.

Miss Harrison said: “He asked if he would like to meet for coffee, coke and a chat and said he would pick him up and give him a lift. He said he would pay for everything and referred to him as his surrogate son.

“He said to him ‘after sport, when you are in the shower, do you ever get turned on?’ and asked him if when he woke up in the morning ‘he was ever (sexually) aroused?’. They arranged to meet at a KFC in Long Eaton and when he arrived the group filmed him and called the police.”

Gilbert, formerly of the Nottingham and Derby area and now of Burgess Street, Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside, pleaded guilty to attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and breaching the notification requirements of the sex offender register.

William Bennett, mitigating, said his client suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in the Royal Logistics Corps which was brought on by him having shot a man as part of his service “and seeing things he should not have seen”. He said: “This is a sad, lonely and isolated man that was using too much alcohol looking for men to hook up with.

“He suffered a marriage breakdown and clearly struggled with his sexuality. This is a man who served his country.”

As part of the community order, the judge ordered the defendant to attend a 43-day sex offender treatment programme and to carry out 25 rehabilitation sessions. She also placed him on the sex offender register for five years and handed him a five-year sexual harm prevention order.