Leeds paedophile jailed for telling '12-year-old boy' he was ‘sexy’ and arranging to meet him at hotel

Pervert Robert Taylor, 36, made contact with a Facebook account purporting to be a 12-year-old boy named ‘James’ in June last year. Over the course of about eight days, he groomed ‘James’ – sending him an explicit photographer, telling him he was “sexy” and that he wanted to be his boyfriend. He arranged to meet him at Batley Railway Station and check into a hotel, indicating he would carry out sexual offending of the most serious kind.

James was a decoy account set up by West Yorkshire Police and when Taylor arrived at Batley Station on June 30 last year, he was arrested.

He admitted what he had done and knew it was wrong, but told the officers he was “horny”. He then admitted he also looked at indecent images, so a computer and hard drives were seized from his address on Naseby View in Burmantofts.

Police found thousands of images and videos of child abuse, including 990 Category A – the most serious – as well as extreme pornographic photographs involving people performing sex acts on animals.

After a delay due to legislative changes, Taylor was brought before Leeds Crown Court in April. He admitted arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence, attempting to meet a child under 16 and attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child. He also admitted three counts of possessing indecent, possessing prohibited images of children and extreme pornographic images.

His sentencing was adjourned to this week as Judge Rodney Jameson KC digested a lengthy medical report. In his report, Dr Harry Wood found Taylor had developed lifelong psychological difficulties due to his mother being unwell when he was born, which meant he had been an “isolated figure” throughout his life.

Dr Wood also said Taylor was likely to have Asperger’s Syndrome. The defendant has no previous convictions.

Judge Jameson said that while there was no real victim, there had been a “significant degree of planning” and “grooming behaviour”. He jailed Taylor for three years and six months. Taylor was also handed a sexual harm prevention order for 10 years.