ONLINE SEX CHAT FORMER SOLDIER TOLD TO ‘GROW UP’
A FORMER soldier who targeted schoolgirls online with sexual chat and rude requests has walked free – with a warning from his own barrister to “grow up”.North Yorkshire Police launched an investigation after learning that Damien Graham had been involved in explicit conversations with a 15-year-old on Facebook.
Court proceedings revealed that while that specific case was not pursued in 2016, officers seized his computers and discovered he had been doing the same with three other teenagers.
Graham, 25, admitted charges of attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act and attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity.
He received an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, along with 20 sessions of rehabilitation activity and was placed on the sex offenders’ register for ten years.
Defence barrister Richard Bennett stated: “The offences are certainly unattractive, but it’s certainly not the case of someone making any threats or blackmail.
There is a degree of persistence, and then it just stops.
He really needs to grow up.” The court heard that he went into the Army in his late-teens, served in Germany and Afghanistan, reached the rank of Lance Corporal, then “got bored” and left.
Prosecutor Paul Newcombe described how Graham “briefly groomed” each girl, sent them a picture of a penis, and asked for naked photos.
Judge Tony Briggs told Graham, of Leslie Place, Selkirk, in the Scottish Borders: “This was a persistent performance which carried with it the potential risk that young girls could be drawn into your net.”
