A man who drove to Bedford Railway Station expecting to meet a 14-year-old boy for sex was in for a shock when he found police waiting for him instead.
Bruno Sucena from Peterborough had been communicating with someone called Harry on the gay online dating site, Grindr.
He understood Harry to be a 14-year-old boy.
In fact, Harry didn’t exist, a court heard, but was the name being used by an undercover police officer in an operation to target those looking to groom and sexually abuse young people.
Sucena told officers as he was detained at the railway station: “I know I shouldn’t and I normally reject the younger ones.”
On Monday, July 6, the 37-year-old from Bowness Way in Peterborough appeared at Luton crown court where he pleaded guilty to arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence, engaging in sexual communications with a child and possessing a knife which was found by the officers in his car in the station car park.
Prosecutor Gabriel McAvock said the defendant had begun communicating with Harry on Grindr last August.
On learning Harry was 14-years-old, he replied in a message “Cool. Virgin?”
Miss McAvock said Sucena sent images of an erect penis to Harry during a period from August 12 last year to August 22.
Then, after arranging to meet the teenager for sex, he set off for the rendezvous at Bedford Railway Station on August 22 last year.
Judge Barbara Mensah, hearing the case, was told Sucena had on him a container of lubricant and on his mobile phone, officer’s found the chat logs relating to his contact with Harry.
The prosecutor said it was when officers carried out a search of the defendant’s car that they found a knife in the driver’s door pocket.
Interviewed by officers at Kempston police station Sucena admitted he had gone to meet the boy with the intention or having oral and anal sex.
He said he had forgotten the knife was in the car.
He was jailed for a total of 16 months and made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for the next 10 years.
His name was also added to the sex offenders register for the same period and he was banned from working with under the age of 16
