'A danger to children' - Paedophile caught having sexually explicit chats with 'young girls' just days after court appearance

A paedophile was caught having sexually explicit chats with 'young girls' just days after he appeared in court for an identical offence.

Malcolm Bellwood, 63, was caught in a sting by members of Catching Online Predators at his bail hostel in Bradford last June after they had posed as seven young girls on the internet, aged between 12 and 14.

Just five days earlier he had appeared in court and been given a three year community order for identical crimes involving another hunter group member posing as a 14-year-old girl.

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Bradford Crown Court heard how during his online conversations Bellwood encouraged the “girls” to perform sexual acts and tried to arrange meetings with them for sex.

A danger to young children: Malcolm Bellwood.A danger to young children: Malcolm Bellwood.
A danger to young children: Malcolm Bellwood.

He told a 12-year-old he was willing to travel to Surrey and suggested that they could go camping in woods near her home.

In other conversations he talked about bestiality and asked the “girls” to send him explicit pictures.

Last November Bellwood, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to a series of offences including attempting to communicate with a child for the purposes of sexual gratification, attempting to cause or incite a child to engage in sexual activity and breaching his sexual offences prevention order.

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Jailing Bellwood for four years and six months Judge Jonathan Rose said the latest offences represented “a determined and continuing sexual interest in young children”.

The judge branded him a danger to young children.

He said: “This was deliberate and persistent offending involving the most serious forms of sexual activity over a protracted period of time and within a very short time of the imposition of a community order for similar offending.

“You’ve admitted you would have met with those children had there not been intervention by the people who have brought you to justice.”

The judge concluded:”I do not believe the public, and particularly young children, can be protected from your sexual predilections unless you remain in prison.”

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Judge Rose imposed an extended licence period of six years in addition to the jail term and Bellwood will be subject to sex offender registration and a sexual harm prevention order for the rest of his life.

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