ERIC HUGHES AND SHOCKING GROOMING IN WREXHAM AND DEGANWY
A man from Deganwy has been sentenced to prison following a disturbing case of online grooming, where he targeted a person he believed was a 14-year-old girl.Eric Hughes, aged 40 and residing at Tan-y-Fron, was brought before Caernarfon Crown Court, where he received a prison term of 27 months.
In addition to his custodial sentence, Hughes was ordered to comply with strict legal restrictions, including ten years of registration as a sex offender and a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO), both designed to monitor and restrict his future activities.
The case was prosecuted by Elen Owen, who provided detailed insights into the disturbing communications that led to Hughes’s conviction.
She explained that during the period of April 6 and 7, 2022, Hughes engaged in malicious online behavior by sending sexualized messages via Facebook and WhatsApp to a person posing as part of a group called “Child Online Safety Team.” This individual was acting as a bait, pretending to be a 14-year-old girl from Newcastle, as part of a police or awareness endeavor.
Hughes, who was then 39, showed he was aware of the person’s age and pretended to be 30 in conversations that followed.
He had initiated contact by sending a friend request on Facebook, which was accepted, and then began a series of inappropriate and sexualized exchanges.
At one stage, Hughes sent a photograph of himself and made a comment, saying, “I bet you look amazing in uniform.” The fake girl from Newcastle explained that she was a school pupil, emphasizing her age of 14.
Despite this, Hughes continued with explicit sexual comments, and when she questioned whether she would “get into trouble,” he responded with the ominous statement, “not if you don’t tell.” The exchanges grew more explicit, with Hughes suggesting engaging in “phone sex,” a term he explained clearly to the girl when she expressed ignorance about its meaning.
Although she declined his explicit propositions, he persisted, sending an apology the following morning, only to resume sexually charged messages subsequently.
Throughout this period, the group’s administrators, who monitored the activity, along with police officers, became aware of Hughes’s conduct.
Hughes was arrested on April 8, 2022, as a result of their intervention.
Interviews with police officers in April and June of 2022 revealed that Hughes denied any wrongdoing and refused to take responsibility for his actions.
It was also noted that Hughes had previously violated a five-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order issued in March 2019.
That order explicitly banned him from joining, using, or subscribing to any social media platform, a restriction he had breached through his online activity.
Moreover, he had previously received a conditional caution in 2020 related to his breach of this order.
During his defense, Sarah Yates highlighted that no actual child was involved in the offense, asserting that no harm was caused.
She portrayed Hughes as a man with a strong work ethic, emphasizing that he had maintained employment for nearly twenty years, and attempted to reduce the gravity of the case.
However, the sentencing judge, Recorder Wyn Lloyd-Jones, expressed serious disapproval of Hughes’s conduct.
He pointed out that Hughes was “incredibly lucky” not to receive a harsher sentence initially and criticized him for lying to police and failing to accept responsibility.
The judge made it painfully clear that Hughes’s actions, motivated by sexual gratification, had severe consequences and that he had wasted a prior opportunity granted by the court when he was cautioned in 2020.
The judge emphasized that Hughes’s re-offending demonstrated a troubling pattern of behavior, which had caused suffering and concern for others.
He issued a stark warning: if Hughes breaches the SHPO again, the consequences will be far more severe, and future sentences will be significantly longer.
Following his release from prison, Hughes will be required to pay a statutory surcharge within three months.
This case serves as a stark reminder of the dangers of online grooming and the importance of vigilance in protecting vulnerable individuals from predatory behavior, especially in regions like Wrexham and Deganwy where such incidents continue to cast a shadow over community safety.
