Newsroom
A college student who was caught by pedophile hunters during a sting operation in the UK has been ordered by a British judge to join his family back in Cyprus to get therapy.
According to the Daily Mail, a 22-year-old suspected pedophile thought he had been chatting with a 15-year-old boy but he ended up in court after he was lured in by a fake profile set up by the Guardians of the North.
The suspect, an expat who went to study at Sutherland University, was chatting with a teenager named Richard for three hours on the dating site Grindr until he managed to set up a meeting for a sexual encounter. But all the messages from the boy were actually coming from the pedophile hunters, who managed to lure him to a location where they apprehended him.
In a short video available online, the student appeared to be saying he wasn’t 100% sure whether he was going to have sex with the boy. He also appeared to show remorse and said it was his first time and that his mother was going to kill him.
The judge would not hesitate to lock him up but she said he could use the support of his family where he lives with his mother in Cyprus
The suspect was arrested by police and a case was filed against him in court, where he got some sympathy and understanding from the prosecutor and the judge who recognized he needed help.
“He went on to offer thanks to Guardians of the North for preventing him from committing a serious sexual offence,” the prosecutor told the judge according to the Daily Mail.
The judge said she would not hesitate to lock him up but added that the risk the student posed could be “better managed if he went back home and into the support of his family,” where he lives with his mother in Cyprus.
According to laws in the Republic of Cyprus, the college student would need to register as a sex offender. However, it was not clear whether his mother lived in the south or north, where there can be different requirements.
Based on his own admission, after pleading guilty to attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming, the judge deferred sentence for five months after saying the student was never in any sort of trouble in the UK but she ordered him to be placed on the British sex offender list.
The judge also ordered the student to seek mental help with a licenced psychiatrist abroad and enter an appropriate treatment plan, as part of his sentence imposed in the UK.
