July 2020 Northampton delivery driver groomed 11-year-old girl A Northampton delivery driver who targeted an 11-year-old girl he found on YouTube before arriving at her address in his work van has been jailed. Dave Fox, formerly of Montague Crescent, groomed his schoolgirl victim for two months after watching her videos on YouTube and privately messaging her. In the two months he spent messaging her, the 47-year-old – who at first told the girl he was 14 – sent her explicit images, pressured her in webcam videos and even learned her address. It culminated in an incident in February this year where she told him she was off from school – so he arrived outside her address in his delivery van and talked to her through his window. However, Northampton Crown Court heard yesterday how this is the third time Fox has appeared in court for grooming children – including when he was jailed for two years in 2012 for a near-identical offence of finding an underage girl on YouTube and exploiting her. “You are a sexual predator,” Her Honour Judge Adrienne Lucking told Fox in sentencing. “You have a clear propensity for sexual interest in young girls. This has taken the form of you contacting young girls through the internet. “On this occasion, you even went as far as to meet her.” The court heard how Fox was caught when a teaching staff member at the girl’s school overheard her talking about it with a friend. The girl reportedly messaged him to say people knew about their conversations. He replied: “I’m dead. What do people know?” She later picked him out of a police ID line up and he was arrested. His house was also searched, where police found handwritten notes and prompts near his computer to guide what he said to his victim to groom her. Judge Lucking ruled that Fox was a high-risk offender who was capable of offending in the exact same way again in the future. He was handed an extended sentence of four-and-a-half years, after which he will face an extended license period of three years. He will remain on the sex offenders register for life.