A juvenile rapist has been incarcerated again for attempting to initiate sexual communication with a 14-year-old girl.
Thomas McCall, incarcerated in 2011 for the rape of a 13-year-old girl, believed he was conversing with another minor online when he detailed in explicit terms his intentions towards her. He was, in fact, engaging with a decoy profile established by paedophile hunting vigilantes, resulting in his detention.
Now the 48-year-old pervert, of Stanton Street, Arthur’s Hill, Newcastle, who poses a high risk to teenage girls, has been sent back to prison by a judge at Newcastle Crown Court.
The court heard it was in October 2020 that McCall began communicating with what he thought was a young girl called Katie. Sentencing him, Judge Edward Bindloss said: “You established she was alone and you embarked on sexual communication of a very graphic kind.”
McCall sent images of his penis and asked her to send images of her genitals and the conversation moved to WhatsApp. The judge said: “You discussed the sort of sex you would have if you met up. You even provided an address but you were arrested before anything like that could happen.
“This was a decoy online profile so thankfully there was no 14-year-old girl to be harmed but it could have been otherwise. You thought she was 14.”
When he was arrested he claimed he knew it was a decoy and was just playing along with it. But prosecutor Kevin Wardlaw said: “Had arrangements been made to meet her he would have attended the meeting place. This man does represent a danger to teenage girls.”
The court heard he has 55 previous convictions, including for raping and impregnating a 13-year-old, for which he was jailed for nine years in 2011. As part of that sentence, he was ordered to sign the sex offenders register for life and was given a lifelong sexual offences prevention order.
He was released on licence in 2015 but was then recalled until the end of the sentence in 2019. He then breached the sexual offences prevention order twice, for which he was sentenced last February. Those offences involved him remaining on private premises in the presence of a 14-year-old girl after agreeing to do some decorating for her mother and engaging the child in conversation.
McCall, who is also on a community order imposed last April for racially aggravated harassment, pleaded guilty to attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and was jailed for 13 months. He will be subject to a sexual harm prevention order indefinitely and his lifelong requirement to sign the sex offenders register continues.
Pre-sentence reports said he poses a high risk of harm to children. He has previously refused to engage in risk reduction work.
Sue Hirst, defending, said: “The communication happened over a relatively short period of time, six days. This was an attempt because it was an adult pretending to be a 14-year-old girl and fortunately not a real 14-year-old girl.
“He was drinking heavily at the time. He denies any sexual attraction to children. I fully accept the court will be sceptical about that because the evidence demonstrates otherwise.”
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