Warped Leeds pervert sent girl, 13, underwear and bombarded her with anonymous emails
A warped paedophile who bombarded a young girl with anonymous emails for two years suggesting they have sex was caught when he sent underwear to the youngster.
The saliva of Darren Colville was found on the knickers he posted to the child that were intercepted by her shell-shocked parents.
The 50-year-old was jailed for more almost four years at Leeds Crown Court for his deviant campaign which the judge described as “grotesquely graphic”.
Colville used the encrypted service Proton Mail to email the girl, complimenting her but refusing to reveal his identity. The messages were sexual “from the beginning”, the court heard.
He would send hundreds of emails, sometimes multiple emails per day.
For two years he would encourage her to engage in sexual behaviour, would send her photos of sexual activity and demand pictures of her naked.
He would call her “my sexy sl**” and relished in the thought of them having sex.
The girl later said she was scared that she was being watched, but had no idea who he was. She told him to cease contact, which he refused to do.
The girl’s mother intercepted a parcel in September 2022 that contained the matching set of bra and knickers.
After the police analysed the contents, they found Colville’s DNA on the underwear and he was arrested.
He was interviewed twice and denied the offences, but could not explain how his DNA ended up on the underwear, prosecutor Matthew Moore-Taylor said.
Colville, of Parkwood Road, Beeston, later admitted causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual behaviour, causing a child to watch a sexual act and sexual communication with a child.
Mitigating, Felicity Hemlin said Colville had “demonstrated some remorse”.
She said despite the nature of the emails, he never tried to meet up with the girl.
She said he had taken steps to address his depression, had stopped drinking and was now medicated.
The judge, Recorder Bryan Cox told him: “It developed to an extent that you wanted her to engage in sexual activity, in grotesquely graphic terms.
“You put an inordinate amount of pressure on her. She became worried what you would do and for her own safety.”
He jailed Colville for 45 months, gave him a life-long sexual harm prevention order and put him on the sex offender register.
He was also given a life-long restraining order to prevent him from ever contacting the girl again.