MICHELLE ANDREWS FROM HULL ESCAPES JAIL AFTER CHILD PORNOGRAPHY SHAME IN SHOCKING ONLINE SCAM

In a case that has shocked the Hull community, Michelle Andrews, a 43-year-old woman from Spring Bank in west Hull, narrowly avoided imprisonment after being convicted of serious child exploitation offences involving indecent images and online blackmail.

Andrews was brought before Hull Crown Court on a Monday, where she faced charges related to her disturbing online activities. The court heard that she had engaged in provocative posing alongside a teenage girl, with the explicit intent of sending these images to a man in Thailand who was a known paedophile. The man, who had previously been convicted of similar offences, had offered Andrews a substantial sum of £9,000 in exchange for the photographs.

The court was informed that Andrews had taken the indecent photographs of herself and the girl, which she then sent to the man via an internet chatroom. This act was part of her desperate attempt to clear mounting debts, as she was struggling to keep up with her mortgage payments following the death of her husband, Paddy, in a motorcycle accident in 2006. The images were taken on May 25, which marked the second anniversary of her husband's tragic death, and included around 40 photographs in various states of undress.

After the man in Thailand received the images, he ceased communication with Andrews and went offline. It was during this period that he began to blackmail her, demanding that she and the girl become his sex slaves and threatening to report her if she did not comply. The court heard that Andrews, feeling increasingly threatened, eventually handed herself into police at Tower Grange Police Station, bringing with her transcripts of her online conversations.

Prosecutor Nick Adlington revealed that Andrews had initially believed she was starting a romantic relationship online, unaware that the man was a convicted paedophile operating from Thailand. The man had a history of preying on vulnerable individuals and was involved in a business selling indecent images to other paedophiles. Andrews’s actions included agreeing to pose with the girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, in various compromising positions.

Following her arrest, Andrews pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to charges of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and taking indecent photographs of a child. The court sentenced her to nine months in prison, but Judge Michael Mettyear, the Honorary Recorder of Hull and the East Riding, decided to suspend the sentence, citing the unusual circumstances of the case. He stated, “I do think this is a case for a prison sentence, but in the very, very unusual circumstances of this case, it is just possible for me to draw back from making that sentence of imprisonment immediately effective.”

In addition to the suspended sentence, Andrews was placed under a supervision order and ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid community work. The court also noted that the man in Thailand could not be prosecuted due to his status as a Thai citizen, leaving a gap in justice for the victims involved in this disturbing case.