Paedophile, 21, posed as 14-year-old in uniform to get into victim's school
A 21-year-old man posed as a 14-year-old pupil in uniform to try and infiltrate the same school as a victim he groomed on social media, a court heard.
Anthony Lonsdale, who has been jailed for sending explicit pictures to young girls, turned up at a school wearing a uniform and tried to enrol as a pupil to in order to meet a teenage girl he had spoken to online.
The paedophile set up fake profiles on Snapchat, Instagram and WhatsApp, using aliases, including pretending to be a teenage girl called "Tia".
Posing as "Tia", he chatted to the girl and encouraged her to add her so-called 12-year-old brother "Sam" - a second fake profile he had created.
Over several weeks "Sam" sent the girl increasingly intimate messages before sending her sexually explicit photos.
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Nottingham Crown Court heard the man posed as a 14-year-old in uniform to infiltrate a school (Jake Brigstock / Nottinghamshire Live)Nottingham Crown Court heard Lonsdale tried to con his way into a school in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, dressed as a pupil in a bid to meet the young victim.
Police were alerted and identified two other girls from Nottinghamshire who Lonsdale had been contacting using fake names, including "Tony", "Tia", "Emily" and "Sam".
Lonsdale would message from the different accounts, send indecent images and request photos in return.
He met up with one of the young teenage girls at a McDonald's restaurant disguised as a female friend and tried to contact her younger sister, the court was told.
The girl blocked him but Lonsdale contacted her from another fake account saying he had attempted suicide because of her actions.
Lonsdale was arrested in March 2022, and bailed but he continued to prey on teenage girls and send naked pictures of himself.
He also went to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire dressed as a teenage girl to meet a 14-year-old girl in a park.
He even convinced her and her mum to let him stay overnight claiming he had no money to get home, the court heard.
Lonsdale, of Wembley, north-west London, admitted eight counts of grooming and possession of sexually explicit images of children.
He was jailed for seven years last Thursday, plus three years on extended licence at Nottingham Crown Court.
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A Sexual Harm Prevention Order and five-year restraining order were also put in place to prevent Lonsdale from contacting the victims.
Detective Sergeant Sophie Draycott, from Nottinghamshire Police's Child Exploitation Investigation Unit, said: "The lengths to which Lonsdale went to by creating several fake personas on social media, to build trust with the victims and even attempting to enrol at the same school as one of the teenagers is unbelievable.
"Behaviour such as this is intolerable, and I would like to recognise the courage of the young girls who worked with us as part of our investigation.
"As a result, Lonsdale is now facing the consequences of his actions."
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