In 2022, Alexander Budd, a Preston Paedophile, who attempted to engage with underage adolescents online and offer payment for sexual acts, but was instead unwittingly communicating with a group of paedophile hunters, was sentenced to imprisonment.
Alexander Budd was apprehended after coordinating a meeting with a 14-year-old in 2021.
The 41-year-old resident of Westway Court, Fulwood, Preston, communicated with a decoy profile and was apprehended following confrontation by the group.
Having entered a guilty plea at Preston Crown Court, Alexander Budd received a six-year sentence.
He confessed to two charges of engaging in sexual communication with a minor and three charges of orchestrating the perpetration of a child sexual crime.
Lancashire Police reported that the gang responsible for creating the fraudulent profile alerted another group in Fleetwood about Alexander Budd’s conversations, informing them that he had scheduled a meeting with a girl outside a convenience store on Garstang Road, Preston, on 6 June 2021.
A member of the gang challenged Alexander Budd before the arrival of the police, who subsequently detained him.
The police subsequently discovered that Alexander Budd had been communicating with another decoy profile and had proposed £200 for sexual services from a 14-year-old girl in Ipswich on 5 June; however, the rendezvous did not occur.
Officers also uncovered that from April 2020 to May 2021, Alexander Budd had orchestrated a payment of £400 to engage in sexual activities with 14 and 15-year-old minors and had consented to see an underage adolescent on 8 August.
Lancashire Police stated that it could not ascertain whether those meetings occurred.
In addition to his prison sentence, Alexander Budd received a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and was mandated to register as a sex offender for life.
Following the sentencing, Det Con Stephen Rotherham stated that Alexander Budd was “a perilous individual who exhibited a continual and depraved inclination towards engaging in sexual acts with minors.”
The collected evidence substantiated his intent and readiness to expend considerable money to perpetrate his offences,” he stated.
“We endorse the sentence imposed… and it ought to act as a deterrent to others contemplating similar offences.”
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