A paedophile who was found hiding in a cupboard after sending a naked picture of himself to an undercover police officer tried to shift the blame onto his innocent partner who was in hospital at the time.
Violent domestic abuser and convicted robber Wayne Jones, 34, of Arden Drive, Speke, appeared for sentence via videolink at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday after pleading guilty to one count of attempted sexual communication with a child and one of assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH). Kate Morley, prosecuting, told how Jones flew into a rage in Runcorn on March 25 last year when his then-partner, who the ECHO has chosen not to name, “confronted” him and "questioned his sexuality" over content she found on his phone.
In his then-partner's words Jones “flipped” and attacked her. Ms Morley said Jones “jumped on (his victim), kneeling on her legs, and shouted in her face - she couldn’t move”. In the ensuing struggle she grabbed his T-shirt and said she might have scratched him while “trying to escape”, and he elbowed her in the face, knocking her glasses off.
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She began to cry, and “described not being able to breathe out of her nose and her lip was bleeding”.
Officers learned of the incident during a routine welfare safeguarding visit a few days later. Jones pleaded guilty to one count of ABH on the basis he didn’t bite her.
The victim suffered bruises including to her nose, left eye, body, arms and legs. When interviewed by police, Jones said the claims were “laughable and quite funny and all a lie”.
In her victim personal statement, she said she realised she was a victim of domestic violence and when she read back what had happened - “it sounded like a film - I thought ‘is that my life?’”
She said she’d completed “so many domestic violence courses” in the past but following the assault it “sank in, everything fell into place” adding: “I don’t know why I protected him.”
Jones’s conduct left her suffering “panic attacks in the night” and waking up “not being able to breathe like I’m being strangled - the doctors think it’s post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)”.
She was now trying to rebuild her life but had to move to another area, and away from friends and family, and no longer wants to go out and socialise but was “glad I’ve spoken up”.
The assault happened around only a month after Jones had been engaging in a lewd conversation on social media with an undercover police officer he believed to be a 13-year-old girl.
Ms Morley told the court Jones used the pseudonym “JohnJones” on Kik Messenger and said he was 32 years old.
The “girl” said she was 13, to which Jones replied “yeah”.
At first he asked “why are you on this, it’s dangerous for you?” He was back three weeks later in February, telling the “girl” he was “from Runcorn” and sent a picture of his genitals.
His watch and a “distinctive” tattoo on his left wrist were enough for investigators to match the picture to Jones later on. When she said she was 13 years old, Jones made out he wasn’t aware and said he “didn’t know” and told her not to message him.
He was back again on Valentine’s Day, February 14, asking the “girl” to chat on SnapChat, where he “immediately asked for pictures”, only to “delete her” when snubbed.
Jones wasn’t finished, and a week later messaged her on Kik asking if she wanted to see his genitals and perform a sex act. He also asked to see pictures of her breasts.
She refused and he branded her a “weirdo” and told her to “f*** off”, but a few days later made a similar request to see her genitals.
Police enquiries linked the account to his then-partner’s address in Runcorn - but she had been in hospital.
Officers found the pervert Jones “hiding in a cupboard behind a wardrobe in a rear bedroom”.
Police found the incriminating picture of Jones’s genitals with watch and tattoo on his phone in addition to screenshotted messages, and although he had deleted Kik and SnapChat, the phone still contained files showing the apps had been previously installed.
Jones tried to blame the innocent victim of his domestic violence for the messages and picture, but police eliminated that as a possibility because she had been in hospital at the time and the phone had been traced to the residential property and they had been in communication with each other so “it couldn’t be her”.
When interviewed on April 1 he denied “ever having a Kik account”.
Ms Morley said Jones had 22 convictions for 34 offences including multiple robberies, affray, dwelling and non-dwelling burglaries, ABH assaults, criminal damage, “exposure”, possessing the Class B drug ketamine and possessing prohibited items in prison and most recently possessing a prohibited item namely a phone in prison for which he was sentenced to eight months in prison last April.
James Preece, defending, noted Jones’s guilty pleas on the day of trial for the attempted sexual communication and day before trial for the ABH, and lack of previous child sex or domestic violence convictions.
He said the victim’s injuries were “not serious injuries in all the circumstances”, and he said the victim statement referred to a course of alleged conduct that went beyond the scope of the convicted ABH offence, noting the court had ordered other charges to lie on file.
Mr Preece conceded the judge would impose consecutive sentences for the different types of crime, and as such he appealed to the “principle of totality”.
He added that father-of-three and former joinery worker Jones was “embarrassed” by his child sex offence conviction and had found custody “difficult”, struggling with his “mental health and low mood”.
Mr Preece said Jones said the reason why his last sentencing hearing was adjourned was because two men had attacked Jones with a broom handle in his cell on his “usual prison wing” after he entered his guilty plea to the sexual communication matter.
The attack left him with “two black eyes, bleeding behind one eye and a gash to the front of his face”, as well as being moved to another wing.
Mr Preece said Jones has been undertaking courses with a view to rebuilding his life after leaving prison.
Judge David Potter sentenced Jones to two years and two months in prison and placed him on the sex offenders register with Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 10 years in addition to a restraining order.
He said the relationship between Jones and his then-partner had been “toxic” and troubled with “difficulty from day one”
Commenting on the impact of Jones’s domestic assault during his sentencing remarks, Judge Potter said: “She now suffers from panic attacks and PTSD from the trauma she’s been put through and as a result of the assault had to leave her home area and start again with no friends or family.
“This relationship is thankfully at an end and there will be a lengthy restraining order imposed today.”
The judge gave a factual chronology of the attempted sexual communication matter, adding: “You denied that you had been responsible for those messages and in fact blamed the victim for being the author of those messages.
“You persisted with that denial right the way through until the beginning of your trial.”
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