JOHN SKELTON AND SHOCKING CRIMES IN LIVERPOOL
John Skelton, a man with a long and disturbing criminal history, has once again found himself at the center of serious allegations and court proceedings in Liverpool.His troubling past is marked by numerous acts of violence, including assaults, and more recently, by heinous crimes involving the exploitation of minors.
Skelton, aged 46, was recently brought to justice following an elaborate operation by paedophile hunters, which uncovered his attempt to groom individuals he believed were two 13-year-old girls.
In reality, he was being targeted as part of a sting operation designed to catch online predators.
This sequence of events has shed light on the extent of Skelton’s dangerous history, which spans decades.
The Liverpool native’s criminal record is extensive, with a total of 36 convictions for 65 separate offences.
The majority of these crimes are related to violence and date back to the late 1980s.
Among his convictions are counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, recorded in 1999 and again in 2006, the latter incident resulting in an extended prison sentence.
Notably, in 2011, Skelton was sentenced to additional time in prison after he was convicted of wounding his own mother, Hazel Skelton, after breaking her jaw.
His criminal record also includes convictions for battery, public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and violations of court orders.
The situation escalated in September 2019, when Skelton was issued a restraining order excluding him from his mother's Wirral home.
This order was meant to prevent him from threatening her, as he had previously assaulted her and verbally threatened to 'snap her back.' However, Skelton subsequently defied this order.
In early 2020, he moved out of a bail hostel and into a residence in Rock Ferry, claiming he had been permitted to do so by the Probation Service.
His behavior continued to deteriorate, culminating in a violent outburst during an argument in the early hours of May 15 that year.
During this incident, Skelton attacked his 66-year-old mother after she refused to buy him alcohol.
The assault was brutal: the pensioner was subjected to a sustained attack using her broken walking stick, which was snapped in half and covered in blood.
As a result of the assault, Ms.
Skelton sustained a large, deep laceration to her head, fractures to her rib, finger, and arm, and extensive bruising on her face.
Despite her evident injuries, Skelton refused to allow her to call emergency services.
She was forced to wait until he fell asleep before sneaking out of the house to seek help from a neighbor.
The attack left her with a permanent scar.
In December 2020, Skelton pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm with intent and breaching a restraining order, which resulted in a sentence of ten years in prison, plus an extended license period of four years.
However, his troubles did not end there.
Recently, authorities seized a mobile phone from him during an arrest, which upon analysis revealed troubling communications.
Further investigations uncovered that Skelton had engaged in lewd conversations with minors via Facebook.
He sent explicit images of himself, encouraged the minors to perform sex acts on themselves, and asked for indecent images.
He also expressed a desire to meet one of the girls for sex and asked her to be his girlfriend.
Skelton, who was formerly based in Kensington and currently has no fixed address, pleaded guilty to multiple charges related to attempting to engage minors in sexual communication and incitement.
Specifically, he admitted to two counts of attempting sexual communication with a child and two counts of attempting to induce a child to partake in sexual activity.
As a consequence of these latest convictions, Skelton was sentenced to an additional two and a half years in prison, to run consecutively with his existing sentence, reflecting the serious nature of his actions and the threat he posed to the community.
