Wakefield sex offender snared by online vigilante

Vile Carl Wood, 54, was rumbled by a vigilante using the profile “Little Laura” on the date-focused social networking site Badoo.

Wood first contacted the fake profile on May 21, 2013, saying he was Carl from Wakefield, West Yorks.

“Little Laura” told him in their first conversation she was 14 and reminded him of her age on other occasions. Nicholas Askins, prosecuting, said in their first conversation Wood started talking about having sex with her.

Over the next couple of months he asked for a picture of her in her school uniform and asked her personal questions.

He also asked her if she was a virgin and tried to persuade her to go to her GP for contraception so she would not get pregnant by him.

Mr Askins said: “He expressed concern the police might be monitoring their conversations and gave her his mobile phone number telling her to store it under a girl’s name in her phone so they could communicate by text.”

He suggested to her that she come to his home for sex and asked her if she had sex toys.

“Little Laura” suggested meeting Wood at a park in Halifax which the paedophile hunter posing as the teen had used to trap other men, but Wood refused and kept trying to get her to come to his home instead.

Wood was arrested in December 2013.

Leeds Crown Court heard Wood had been convicted of raping a woman at a party in April 2000.

Judge Sally Cahill QC told him immediate custody was the only appropriate punishment and ordered him to sign the sex offender’s register indefinitely.