Sex predator snared by undercover police jailed
NEROCUA sexual predator has been jailed after sending explicit messages to a person he believed was a child.
Declan Sains, 28, was caught after talking to who he thought was a 14-year-old boy online, but instead was an undercover police officer.
When Sains was arrested at his home in Bishop Auckland, officers discovered more sexual conversations with actual children.
Sains previously pleaded guilty to engaging in sexual communication with a child, making indecent images of children and inciting a boy to engage in sexual activity. He was sentenced to eight years and three months in prison at Teesside Crown Court.
He also was given an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order and registration requirement.
In July last year, Sains unknowingly sent messages to officers from the North East Regional Organised Crime Unit (NEROCU) posing as the teenage boy, asking him if he wanted a "rape experience", the unit said.
The conversations with real children included Sains sending images of his penis.
After sentencing, NEROCU's Det Con Georgina Lewis said the investigation had been "particularly vile".
"Sains thought he could keep offending without consequences, but he has learned that our officers will not stop in their pursuit of abuses," she said.
