Paedophile caught with girls' underwear is jailed

A paedophile caught carrying an envelope filled with girls' underwear as he attempted to meet a 12-year old has been jailed.

Christopher Webb, 38, of Tilesford, Worcestershire, was jailed for four and a half years for attempting sexual activity with a child under the age of 13 after an undercover police operation.

Worcester Crown Court had heard he began communicating with and grooming someone he believed to be a 12-year-old girl on social media.

Webb sent explicit images of himself and asked for similar images, before arranging to meet the person he was messaging at Gloucester railway station on 26 March 2025.

He made it clear that it was his intention to have sex with the girl and continued to express his perverted sexual desires.

On arrival at the station, he was met by officers and arrested. Webb had a black bag which contained an envelope full of girls' underwear with his home address on it.

Further phone searches confirmed his social media account profiles and web searches included "do under 16s need a train ticket?", confirming he knew his intended victim was underage.

At a previous hearing, Webb pleaded guilty to attempted sexual communication with a child, attempting to cause or incite a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration, and attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming.

He was handed a concurrent sentences of 10 months for the first count, four years and six months for count two, and two years and three months on the third charge.

Webb was also ordered at Friday's hearing to sign the sex offenders' register with the police indefinitely and given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) lasting 10 years.

Det Con Rich Britton, from West Mercia's Online Child Sexual Exploitation Team, said: "We are pleased to put this paedophile behind bars before he could carry out any of his disgusting intentions on an actual child, so this operation was a good result to protect potential victims from his depraved behaviour.

"Webb was caught red-handed, thinking he was speaking online to a girl, and we would warn any other individuals thinking of communicating with a child and attempting to arrange sexual activity like this to be warned it could be the police and you too could be sent to prison."

Follow BBC Hereford & Worcester on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.