Wallsend serial pervert caught trying to prey on children for FOURTH time
by Rob Kennedy · ChronicleLiveA serial online pervert has been jailed after he was caught trying to prey on children for the fourth time.
Anthony Morgan was before the courts in 2017 and 2019 after being snared by people posing as children online. Now he has been at it again, chatting to what he believed was a 13-year-old girl.
In fact a law enforcement officer had set up a decoy profile on a social media chat site, pretending to be the youngster. Morgan, who was on the same site posing as an 18-year-old, ended up communicating with the profile in April this year.
He confessed he was actually 58 and despite the revelation of the girl's age, he continued the chat and the conversation quickly became sexual. He asked about her body development, offered to help her learn to do sexual acts and asked what colour her underwear was.
He was arrested and told the police he thought he had done well by giving her advice first, telling her that she was younger than 18 so should end the chat. But he said he had continued to speak to her because he was bored and lonely.
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Newcastle Crown Court heard Morgan, 59, of Westmoreland Road, Wallsend, has ten previous convictions. In June 2017 he was jailed for 21 months for attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming. That involved another decoy profile and he travelled to meet what he thought was child at a train station, where he was confronted and detained by vigilantes.
In November 2019 he was convicted of two counts of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and one offence of attempting to engage a child in sexual activity. That related to two decoy profiles of 15-year-old girls.
He was also in breach of sex offenders registration and a sexual harm prevention order. He got a three year community order for those offences..
In relation to the latest offence he pleaded guilty to attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child. He was jailed for eight months.
Matthew Purves, defending, said Morgan has learning difficulties.
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