March 2010 Paedophile is jailed for having sex with girl, 15 A PERVERT groomed a 15-year-old girl online before convincing her to have sex with him in a Bolton park. Paul Collins, aged 40, was jailed for two years and 10 months yesterday after he was identified from a CCTV image of him from cameras at his victim’s home. When police tracked down Collins to his Croydon home, he admitted having “masses” of child pornography on his computer. Sentencing him at Bolton Crown Court, Judge William Morris said: “You represent a real and serious risk to children. You had all these images on your computer and you acted upon your interest in young girls.” Ian Simkin, prosecuting, told the court the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, uploaded a profile on to the gothic social networking websites tagged.com and vampire freaks.com in October, 2007. She was befriended by another user called Paul who said he was 32 and they exchanged sexual messages, even though the girl admitted to being 15 and was not interested in having sex with the man. Collins — who was 38 at the time — convinced the girl to meet him and on November 1, 2007, travelled to Bolton and met her. They then went to Haslam Park, Deane, where they had consensual sex behind a hedge, the court heard. They went to the girl’s friend’s house and had sex again the following morning, after which the defendant took the girl home where he was caught on CCTV. The girl told her father what had happened and the police were called, but the only lead they had was the CCTV image. The picture was circulated but police did not track down Collins until May, 2009. When officers searched his home, he was asked if he had any indecent images of children on his computer. He said “masses”, before breaking down in tears. A total of 1,460 indecent images of children, including videos, were found. Colin Buckle, defending, said Collins was a depressive with low intelligence, who had lived an isolated life and found it very difficult to form normal adult relationships. Collins pleaded guilty to sexual grooming, two counts of sexual activity with a child, 10 counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possessing indecent images of children.