BRITAIN: A trainee teacher in England was sentenced to 18 months in jail yesterday for trying to procure a nine-year-old girl for sex using an Internet chat line.
The judge who jailed him called for an urgent review of the law which sets a maximum two-year sentence for the offence.
Luke Sadowski (19), described as a "real and significant threat to children", was trapped by an undercover police operation after a tip-off from the US.
The website he used was set up by US law enforcement agents to detect paedophiles. When Sadowski continued asking to be introduced to a young girl, they alerted the London police. Officers taped and videoed Sadowski as he came to the city to rendezvous with a fictitious nine-year-old, and he was arrested.
Sadowski admitted attempting to incite another to procure a child under 16 and possessing an imitation gun, which was found on him as he was arrested.
As he jailed Sadowski at Southwark Crown Court, Judge Gerald Gordon commented: "It is hoped that urgent consideration will be given whether that maximum [of two years] gives adequate powers to the court to protect the young and vulnerable." The judge added: "In the wrong hands the Internet can be a feeding ground for fantasy and also can be a means of committing serious criminal offences."
When Sadowski's student accommodation in Canterbury, Kent, was searched, police discovered a safe containing leg shackles, handcuffs, an extending police baton, a kitchen knife and roll of tape. He also had newspaper cuttings about the murder of 13-year-old Milly Dowler. He had set up a memorial site on his computer for murdered Sarah Payne and was going to set up another for the murdered Soham schoolgirls, the court heard.
Judge Gordon told Sadowski there were a number of features in the case which "give rise to real serious concern about the danger you may pose to women". He had read psychiatric and probation reports which also indicated "elements of fantasy and bravado". "You are, at your age, at the crossroads. If you accept and try to benefit from your sentence and any help you receive during and after it, it may be that fears for the future may turn out to be unfounded. But if you commit any offence of a sexual nature again, any court would have to regard you as extremely dangerous."
Using the name Ben Smith, Sadowski asked the US website what the price would be for a girl about 10 years old and of white race.
He was told to get in touch with the site's UK agents. Unknown to Sadowski, he was in touch with one of the Scotland Yard paedophile unit's officers.
He told the contact he wanted "standard, nothing special". He expected to pay around £200 a day. He made it clear he wanted to be alone in a room with the girl, wanted her to talk "but not lots and lots". He told the undercover officer: "I am not going to mistreat her, not too much, if you know what I mean."
Officers met him at Victoria station and took him by a cab equipped with video to a hotel, where he was arrested. As well as the handgun in his waistband, police found he was carrying a cuddly toy and a single condom.
Ms Emma Edham, defending, said Sadowski, a virgin, had behaved in a stupid, frightening and disgusting way, but "it was no more than a boy's stupid experimentation".