‘Every parent’s nightmare’ as dad finds messages from paedophile to daughter

A paedophile has been put behind bars after targeting young children online in what’s been called “every parent’s nightmare.”

A dad discovered that his young daughter had been sent sexual messages online.

The highly explicit messages were from John Barker, 33, and had been sent to his primary-school aged child earlier this year.

Police arrested Barker but as they were investigating he lurked in the shadows on the Internet once again - and contacted another child, trying to get them to take part in sex acts with him online, reports TeessideLive.

The child, however, was actually an adult who was part of a child protection group setting up fake profiles trying to snare paedophiles.

On Friday, he stood in the dock at Teesside Crown Court as Judge Jonathan Carroll told him that he’d used the internet as a hunting ground to exploit his young victims.

He said: "A dad found what is every parent's nightmare - that his young daughter had engaged in sexual communication with an unknown male.

"It's the adult world's responsibility to protect and care for our children.

“The internet and social media is becoming the hunting ground of people like you, who see children as easy sexual targets to be exploited.

"It was abundantly clear that she was young.

“It is clear that you were seeking to go down exactly the same path with the second user as you did with the child victim."

Barker, who is now of no fixed address but formerly of North Lodge Terrace in Darlington, pleaded guilty to engaging in sexual communication with a child, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and two counts of making indecent photos of a child.

He was jailed for 53 months and will serve half of the sentence, before he is released on licence.

He was also made the subject of an indefinite sexual harm prevention order, and he will sign the sex offenders' register for the rest of his life.