Dogged Pudsey paedophile targeted five young girls with hotel fantasy suggestion
A determined paedophile latched onto five young girls online telling them he wanted to take them to a hotel for sex.
The youngsters said they were just 12 and 13-year-old, but were all decoy profiles set up by police to catch sex offenders.
Predator Simon Bennett was jailed at Leeds Crown Court after admitting a raft of child-sex offences.
The 49-year-old used an alias name online, would ask for intimate photos and discussed sex acts at length.
He talked to the first supposed youngster in July 2023, who told him she was just 13.
He called her “sexy” and sent her a video of himself holding his penis. Prosecutor Lydia Carroll said he went into “graphic detail” about having sex with her.
He said he wanted to pick her up from school and take her to a hotel.
In December 2024 he contacted the profile of a supposed 12-year-old, and told her had had “naughty thoughts” and pestered her for pictures.
Again he said he wanted to pick her up from school and buy her “sexy underwear”. He also encouraged her to masturbate.
The pervert talked to three other profiles and made similar sexual suggestions before he was finally arrested in February 2025.
Bennett, of Chapeltown, Pudsey, has no previous convictions.
He admitted five counts of attempting to engage in sexual communications and five of attempting to incite a child into sexual activity of either a penetrative or non-penetrative nature.
Mitigating, Matthew Stewart said Bennett suffered from social isolation and used his online presence as a coping mechanism.
He said that Bennett had a “lack of recollection” of his offending, but said it was “perhaps from the shame of what happened and the embarrassment”.
Judge Howard Crowson jailed Bennett for four years and 10 months.
He put him on the sex offender register for life, and gave him a life-long sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) to curb his internet use.