Ex-Pc in child porn shame jailed over grooming

Christopher Snow, 25, posed as a 15-year-old boy as he asked a series of girls aged 11 to 14 to undress for him in front of web cameras.

Snow quit his post at West Yorkshire Police in July 2007 just before he was convicted of possessing child pornography.

He had been a constable in the force, based at Holbeck, Leeds for just 20 months at the time.

Snow was jailed yesterday for three years and nine months for inciting children to engage in sexual activity and for possessing 652 incident images of children, 47 of which were rated at level four, the second most serious category.

Snow came to the attention of police again in 2009 when a teenage girl he had been chatting to went missing.

As police tried to track her down they discovered that Snow had been communicating with the girl online. She was eventually found safe and well and while Snow was not involved in her going missing, police raided his home and seized his laptop.

Jailing Snow and ordering him to sign the sex offenders’ register indefinitely, Judge Christopher Batty, sitting at Leeds Crown Court, said: “Offences of this sort are all too prevalent.

“The internet is a place fraught with danger because of people like you. The courts must protect young girls from people like you and, of course, protect them from themselves.”

Prosecutor Heather Gilmore told the court Snow had posed as a 15-year-old boy and groomed seven girls in online chatrooms in September 2009.

Snow had a number of pseudonyms to lure his vulnerable victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, including “Northern Monkey” and “AJ is here”.

He chatted to them using MSN over a number of days before asking them to expose themselves on their web cameras or send pictures of themselves undressed.

Three of the girls undressed for Snow and one touched herself intimately and gave him her mobile number after he had groomed her online.

Snow, from Moor Road, Headingley, Leeds, also asked three times for one of the girls to meet him but nothing came of it.

He pleaded guilty to eight offences of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

He also admitted 10 charges of making indecent photographs of children and breaching a sexual offences prevention order by having a camera on his mobile phone when prohibited from doing so.

Mike Greenhalgh, mitigating, asked that Snow’s guilty plea be taken into consideration.

The court was told that Snow had been attracted to teenage girls for a number of years and his problems may have stemmed from childhood.

He was said to be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder following his police service.

Judge Batty told Snow: “Sadly you are attracted to teenage girls; it’s an attraction that you have pursued over a number of years...what is clear is that these desires have not waned.”

Speaking after the case, Detective Constable Lisa Wright, of West Yorkshire Police, said: “Christopher Snow will no longer be in a position to abuse the trust that was placed in him by these vulnerable young girls who believed he was a teenage boy.

“I hope the sentence will bring some closure to his victims and their families.

“I would also remind parents to be aware of how their children use the internet and, where possible, try to ensure that children are in a supervised part of the house when accessing the internet.”

In 2006, Snow narrowly escaped jail after pleading guilty to eight offences involving making and possessing indecent images of children between October 2004 and December 2005.

They involved 895 indecent photographs and video clips which were discovered on two computers.

Bradford Magistrates heard 61 of the images were at level five, which can involve incidents depicting bestiality, and 28 were at level four, a category which includes images involving children and adults.