A Kennington Paedophile ‘predator’, Jonathan Chapman, planned to meet what he thought was a 12-year-old girl for sex in the Westgate shopping centre toilets.
It was not, however, a pre-teen called ‘Megan’ who Jonathan Chapman met at Oxford railway station on September 5, 2021, but members of vigilante ‘paedophile hunter’ group Secretly Tackling Online Predators UK.
The confrontation was taped and the 24-year-old defendant, Jonathan Chapman, recorded admitting he was there to meet the 12-year-old but claimed he was not intending to have sex with her.
He tried to explain away the fact he had lubricant in his bag, claiming it belonged to a former girlfriend. The woman was contacted by the police, who said it was not hers.
A statement from a support worker at the facility where Jonathan Chapman was living raised concerns that he would not stop or ‘learn from his actions’. “He thinks he’s untouchable, which is very scary,” she added.
Jailing him for four years and four months, Judge Michael Gledhill KC said: “The message must go out clearly from these courts that those who do want you’ve done can expect nothing other than an immediate and substantial sentence of imprisonment.”
Earlier, prosecutor William Rees said that Jonathan Chapman struck up a conversation online in summer 2021 with the decoy social media account purporting to belong to 12-year-old ‘Megan’. In fact, the account was operated by an adult named in court only by the initials T.R.
The defendant was well aware of the person’s purported age, the prosecutor said. When in August 2021 Jonathan Chapman invited the girl to attend a barbecue in Oxford, she replied: “I can’t get there. I’m only 12 and I live in Essex.”
His conversation with the ‘girl’ became sexual. He suggested they could ‘have fun’ but added that he did not ‘want to lose [her] as a bestest friend’ and pleaded with her not to ‘get scared or show or tell’ anyone.
She was sent a picture of his exposed genitalia, with Jonathan Chapman writing: “How would you like to have fun with this?”
They arranged to meet up in Oxford, where Jonathan Chapman said they could go to the Westgate Centre ‘where they were to have sex in the baby changing room’.
Members of the vigilante group, STOP UK, detained him at the railway station until the police arrived and he was arrested. A knife was found in his bag on arrest.
Jonathan Chapman, of Sandford Lane, Kennington, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to attempted sexual communication with a child, attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act, arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence, attempting to meet a child after sexual grooming, attempting to incite a child under-13 to engage in sexual activity and possession of a knife.
Matthew Pardoe, mitigating, said his client had a ‘significantly low IQ’ and his full mental health difficulties had not been fully diagnosed. He had lived in supported accommodation since leaving the care of child social services.
Jonathan Chapman was said to have ‘suffered considerably in his early years’, including at the hands of bullies.
He will be on the sex offender register for life. The judge imposed a sexual harm prevention order aimed at limiting his access to children.
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