June 2022 Predatory Derby paedophile branded ‘a risk to the public’ A predatory paedophile from Derby put his hands down the pants of a very young girl who found the courage to speak to the police about it only years later. A judge told Douglas Curtis he could have owned up to what he did when he was sentenced to six years in prison in 2017 for other child offences he committed around the same time. But he chose not to and has now been described as “a risk to the public”. Handing the 34-year-old a new six-year sentence, Recorder Jason Macadam said: “You are and were a practising and predatory paedophile who actively seeks satisfaction from paedophilic material. “You have an obvious sexual preoccupation with children and have an anti-social deviant attitude towards women. You targeted this girl, she was particularly vulnerable and you could have cleared the decks and admitted these offences (against her) back in 2017 when you were convicted of other (child sex) offences. “You pose a risk to the public and I conclude that you would carry on committing sexual offences given the opportunity if you thought you could get away with it.” Caroline Bradley, prosecuting, said Curtis was jailed for six years in April 2017 after admitting charges of inciting children to engage in sexual activity. She said on that occasion, between 2014 and 2016, he created several fake Facebook profiles to send sexual messages to young girls and their mothers. They included him sending images of his private parts as he looked at a six-year-old girl and asked her mother if she would like to see him having sex with the child. Miss Bradley said at around the same time the defendant sexually abused a young Derbyshire girl by putting his hands down the front of her trousers and touching her sexually on “at least three occasions”. The prosecutor said: “She reported it to her parents at the time but no action was taken as she did not want to speak about it (to the police). “But a number of years later she disclosed to her school that she had previously been sexually abused.” Miss Bradley said Curtis, of Northumberland Street, Normanton, was arrested, interviewed and denied he had touched the girl sexually. But he later pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a girl aged under 13. The prosecutor said: “In her victim impact statement she says ‘what he did to me caused me to feel disgusted about myself as a person and even now I hardly go out’.” Steve Taylor, mitigating, said his client was released halfway through his last sentence in March 2019 and first lived in Bass Street, Derby, then in Alvaston and now Normanton.  “(These) are deplorable contact offences where he put his hand down her pants on around three occasions but he did not force himself on her.” Curtis’ six-year sentence is made up of three years in custody and a three-year extended licence. It means he will be released from prison two-thirds of the way through the custodial element – i.e. after two years. He was also handed a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and will be on the sex offender register for 10 years. April 2017 Ripley pervert used fake Facebook identities to send sexual messages to young girls A Derbyshire pervert created several fake Facebook IDs to send “violent and sexual” messages to young girls and their mothers. Douglas Curtis, 28, was yesterday jailed for six years at Nottingham Crown Court after he pleaded guilty to 12 counts of inciting sexual and offensive behaviour. Curtis, of Booth Street, Ripley, committed the first offence on April 9, 2015, when he messaged an 11-year-old girl at 10pm from a Facebook account he had created under a false name. Andrew Easteal, prosecuting, said: “The messages he sent were offensive, very sexual and explicit in nature. He invited her to meet him to engage in sexual activity with him. She told him several times to go away and leave her alone.” When the victim, whose identity is protected by law, told Curtis her age, his response was “I do not care”, the court heard. A few days later, on April 19, Curtis messaged a mother-of-six on Facebook under a different alias. He sent the mother a picture of her six children, who were all under the age of 14, asking: “what would you think if I abused them all?” Curtis later posed as a 13-year-old boy and contacted two friends, who were aged 12 and 13. He sent the girls sexual messages as well as sexually explicit images of himself. In June 2015, he messaged an 11-year-old girl, once again using a false name. Mr Easteal said: “She took him initially to be a boy from school and accepted a friend invitation. He began with a series of innocuous questions and exchanges.” But the conversation took a dark turn and Curtis asked the young girl if they could meet up, before he started to become “pushy” and sent an “increasing number of messages”. Mr Easteal said: “[Curtis] set up accounts to mask who he was, both in terms of his name and location and, most importantly, his age. He was unaffected by the responses he was receiving.” Judge Rosalind Coe QC sentenced Curtis to six years of imprisonment for six counts of inciting sexual behaviour with children and one year in prison for six counts of inciting offensive behaviour, to run concurrently. She said: “I accept that there was no direct contact but her clearly was pursuit of that. You might have turned to children because of your rejection from adults.”