SCHOOL TECHNICIAN JAILED FOR CHILD ABUSE AND CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

A member of staff at a large comprehensive school has been found guilty of intending to have sexual relations with a 13-year-old girl and possessing a video of a child as young as five being raped. The court heard that Paul James Davies worked as a lab technician at Porthcawl Comprehensive and also volunteered with St John Ambulance. He was caught in an undercover operation by an online group called Welsh Children Protectors, where an adult member created a fake profile posing as a 13-year-old girl and waited for contact. Davies started messaging the profile in October, and their conversations quickly turned sexual, with Davies saying that the girl’s age "seemed to spur him on." Over weeks, he discussed meeting the girl, going for drives, and the sexual acts he wanted to perform and have performed on her. He arranged to meet the decoy on November 10 but did not show up; instead, members of the group went to his house. Police seized his computer and found his phone, which stored three films and hundreds of images of child abuse. Davies, of Forge Road, Porth Talbot, was sentenced to a total of eight months in prison—four months for each of the image charges, to run concurrently, plus four months for attempting to incite a child, to run consecutively. He was also ordered to stay away from children for 10 years, and his name will appear on the sex offenders register for that period.