Wolverhampton predator teen in internet modelling contracts con avoids prison
A teenager who promised young girls modelling contracts in a plot to get them to send him naked pictures over the internet has escaped a jail-term.
Adam Cooke, formerly of Willenhall, pretended to be female and used fake Facebook and Skype profiles to trick girls aged between 11 and 14.
Among the accounts he used was one pretending to be 2012 Britain's Got Talent semi-finalist Lauren Thalia.
The 19-year-old drew up bogus contracts and even promised to arrange a meet and greet with band One Direction if his victims posed naked on web cam.
Appearing for sentencing at Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday, Judge Martin Walsh told Cooke he was very 'fortunate' to avoid immediate imprisonment.
Instead, Judge Walsh gave him a three-year community order.
The teen will be supervised by the probation service for the period and also have to comply with a sexual harm prevention order, which includes conditions such as not installing software on his computer which can delete personal content.
Judge Walsh had said Cooke was likely receive a lengthy prison term at an earlier hearing, but yesterday admitted the case had been 'troublesome'.
Yesterday, he said: "These offences taken individually and collectively pass the custody threshold by a significant degree.
"Had you have been older you would have been going to custody for a substantial period of time."
Judge Walsh added: "I want to make it quite clear you have been very fortunate indeed to avoid immediate custody for the commission of these offences because you have been given an opportunity to work with the probation service."
Cooke, formerly of Trentham Avenue, Willenhall, but now of Renton Road in Fordhouses, Wolverhampton, committed the offences throughout 2013 when he was aged 16 and 17 and working as a Scout leader with children as young as six-years-old.
Police received a tip-off and raided his old address seizing his computer.
Nearly 70 indecent images were discovered including 22 graphic pictures in the most serious category.
Cooke later admitted several counts of inciting children to engage in sexual activity, possessing indecent images of children and taking indecent photographs of children.
Defending barrister Mr Christopher O'Gorman said: "Sadly this is a case for this generation, the use of the internet for wholly inappropriate purposes."
Referring to the community order, he added: "This is not a pat on the back or in any way affirmation of what he was doing but a way of protecting the public in the future and still punishing him."
