Police arrest Newbury paedophile Jack Burton at supermarket workplace

A PAEDOPHILE was arrested as he prepared for a work shift at a supermarket.

Back at home, Jack Burton had thought he was luring children into sexual activity.

But, in reality, he was chatting online to undercover police, Reading Crown Court heard on Friday, March 14.

David Tremain, prosecuting, said the 29-year-old, of Huntingdon Gardens, Newbury, approached one supposed 13-year-old online called Leah.

Burton - who knew the child’s alleged age - immediately asked: “Have you ever had sex?”

In another online chat, the court heard, he tried to engage another child, supposedly aged 12, in sexualised conversation.

Burton posed both as a woman and as a man in such exchanges, said Mr Tremain.

He also sent one account, which he believed was operated by a child, a photo of his penis, the court was told.

He was arrested after police, acting on information received, swooped at the Sainsbury’s store where he was due to start work and seized his electronic devices.

Burton admitted five charges in all: causing a girl under the age of 13 to look at an image of a male engaging in sexual activity; communicating in a sexual manner with two girls; possessing 10 indecent images of children in Category A – the most serious category depicting penetrative sex, sadism or bestiality - possessing three indecent images of children in Category B and having 43 extreme pornographic images depicting acts of bestiality.

All the offences were committed in Newbury between May 23 and October 3, 2022.

Jonathan Underhill, defending, said his client had no previous convictions.

He added: “This is an example the courts so often, unfortunately see, of a young man with difficulties of his own, isolated, and whose habit of watching legal pornography developed.”

He told the court a pre-sentence report suggested Burton was capable of being rehabilitated in the community.

Mr Underhill went on: “Your Honour will be considering whether whether an immediate custodial sentence is the only disposal - in my respectful submission, it isn’t.

“He would find himself released, in relatively short order, with no supportive framework.”

Judge Rachel Drake told Burton: “Your offending isn’t, sadly, unusual in these courts.”

She said: “You didn’t stop at just looking at images - you set up profiles that weren’t you and communicated with people you believed to be children…that communication was immediately sexual.”

While that represented the most serious offence, Judge Drake reminded Burton he had had images of the worst kind of child abuse.

She told him: “Every person who chooses to look at this material is effectively contributing to the abuse of that child.”

Those children, as adults, live with the knowledge that people such as Burton were looking at them for sexual gratification while they had been at their most vulnerable, added Judge Drake.

Burton was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment suspended for 18 months.

He was ordered to participate in rehabilitation activities and to complete 80 hours unpaid community work.

Next, Burton was required to pay £150 costs plus a statutory victim services surcharge.

Finally, Burton was made subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register.