A married family man who told a ‘young girl’ to imagine she was a Roman sex slave during debauched online chats has been jailed for nearly three years.
Timothy Downie, 52, told the ‘girl’ she should “start thinking like a Roman slave girl who needs to please her master”, York Crown Court heard.
He thought he was chatting with a real 12-year-old girl on the KIK messenger app, not realising he had ben snared by an undercover cop posing as a minor, said prosecutor Matthew Moore-Taylor.
Over the next six weeks, Downie, from York, encouraged the girl to have sex with older boys and urged her to carry out lewd acts on herself, even giving her tips on how to go about it, not realising he was feeding the North Yorkshire constabulary with a raft of incontrovertible evidence which culminated in officers turning up on his doorstep.
Mr Moore-Taylor said the undercover officer used a false name to pose as a young girl online and hung her profile on the messenger app in which users can chat in groups or send private messages.
On January 12, 2022, the ‘girl’ received a message from a KIK account with a girl’s name. It was Downie posing as a “19-year-old girl from York presently on a gap year”.
During their initial chat, Downie, of Chestnut Avenue, Heworth, asked her what year she was in at school. When the girl said she was in Year 8, Downie “changed the conversation to a sexual bent and told her “Year 8 was a good year” to engage in sexual activity with older boys.
Over the next month and a half, Downie upped the ante, urging the ‘girl’ to perform a sex act on herself. When she said she was “inexperienced”, he egged her on regardless.
The police decoy told Downie on “multiple” occasions that she was a 12-year-old girl but, far being deterred, he said she should be “sexually active”.
He told her: “Just think if you were born in Roman times: you’d be married by now or be a slave girl and (have sex) all the time. Start thinking more like a Roman slave who needs to please her master.”
He added: “It’s your (body) and it’s telling you it’s ready for sex.”
He then told her that her “confidence will be loads better” if she met up with older boys for sexual activity.
Six days into the depraved conversations, the ‘girl’ asked Downie if he was on Snapchat.
He replied: “Ha ha, I don’t need to see pictures of you doing it; just make sure you do it regularly.”
Three days later, he again encouraged her to perform a lewd act, to which the ‘girl’ responded: “I think I’m too young.”
Downie replied: “Ha ha, you’ll only think that until the moment you do it and you’ll wonder what you were waiting for.”
About three weeks after the chats ended, police turned up at Downie’s family home. They seized various devices including an iPhone on which Downie had sent the sordid messages.
Analysis of other phones uncovered extreme pornography and indecent images but they were “not deemed to be sufficiently within his possession” to be illegal and so he wasn’t charged with any further offences.
He was charged with attempted communication with a girl under 13 years and attempted sexual communication with a minor. He admitted the offences and appeared for sentence yesterday (Friday, May 31).
Defence barrister Sean Smith said that Downie, a married father, had led a hitherto blameless life and had taken steps to cure himself of his nefarious online activities since his arrest by enrolling on a course with a rehabilitation charity and seeing a therapist.
Judge Simon Hickey said that references from Downie’s family “painted a different picture” of him and they were “clearly shocked and surprised” by his egregious behaviour.
He said that Downie had led an “industrious life, lived well, with a full working life”, but the offences were too serious for anything other than an immediate jail sentence.
Downie was jailed for two years and eight months and placed on the sex-offenders’ register for life.