By Lucy Caulkett-
A former Coronation Street director who has also directed several other British soaps, is in court accused accused of under aged grooming. Timothy Dowd was caught red handed grooming a police officer posing as a 13-year-old girl.
The disgraced ex director said he thought he was speaking to an older woman as part of an erotic fantasy online.
Dowd, 66, from Harrogate, said it was common for users on Lycos Chat to play out “the younger girl and older man role play” which is what he suspected when contacting Chantelle13Cymru. Dodd confirmed the age of the supposed girl he was speaking to, before requesting she sent a picture of herself in order to establish her identity. Once cops believed the weirdo was becoming suspicious, officers closed in on him at a property in East Keswick, Leeds, where Dowd’s phone was seized and he was arrested.
The father-of-two pathetically told Leeds Crown Court that he believed the 13 in the profile name may mean the user wanted to play the role of a 13-year-old girl. He denied having a sexual interest in children and claimed not to have received any complaints about his conduct working with youngsters in a careefor more than 30 years. The jury heard that Dowd said her age was not a problem for him.
PHOTOS
Dowd encouraged the decoy to send him photos of her breasts, have phone sex with him via WhatsApp, and boasted to enjoy wife swapping with his friend. The conversations continued until January 15, at which point Dowd started to suspect, according to prosecutors, that he was the subject of an undercover .
Dowd was a member on the chat room for three years and ten months when he contacted the profile set up by an undercover police officer. He asked for her mobile number before sending a series of explicit messages encouraging her to send him photos of her breasts and have phone sex, a court heard. Dowd, from Harrogate, North Yorks, lost his job in January last year after being employed by ITV as a freelance TV director for more than 30 years, a jury was told.
SHAMED
The shamed director had directed 200 episodes of Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Heartbeat, as well as Runaway Bay and the Famous Five. His reputation is now in tartars, and can only be restored if he is eventually acquitted. Dowd claimed he went into the chatroom to engage in “erotic conversation” with women following moments of loneliness in his long-term marriage, a court heard.
He said: “You look out for people to have a certain topic in their screen name which can cover all sorts of fantasies.”I like that they were getting aroused by talking to me about it.”It’s common that some women who enter the site have a fantasy about the younger girl and older man. “I didn’t know what the 13 meant, it could have applied to anything. He said:
I was under the impression I had contacted someone who had spent considerable time creating their back story.
“I was assuming that he or she would be wanting to indulge in the old man and younger girl role play.”Dowd has pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempting to cause a girl aged 13 to engage in sexual activity.He also denies one count of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child between January 12 and 15 last year.
Dowd claimed to have only contacted six women in total since joining the Lycos Chat site after setting up a profile under OllieReed – named after the famous actor. Giving evidence, he said: “I happened to be thinking of a lunch with him at the time I was asked to create a screen name. “I used to go in there to find adult women who were interested in sharing some certain (some certain??-awful grammar for a director) conversations with me.
UNLOVED
“There were moments in my marriage where I felt quite lonely.
I felt unloved. I used to go on this site to find women to talk to, to fill that void.”He allegedly contacted Chantelle13Cymru eight days after the profile was set up by an undercover officer, only known as Alex.
Dowd was trapped after the undercover officer signed up to the chat room accessible to children of any age despite the site’s over 16 policy. The fake profile had been visited by 395 males and 35 females when Dowd first contacted her on January 12 last year, a court heard.
She said: “Given that I was purporting to be a 13-year-old I wanted it to be indicative of that age.”I picked a genetic name and also gave the age of of 13 and a locality which is indicative of an area you say you are from. You need a pre-existing email address.”Lycos Chat was a website identified by myself as being potentially popular with children.
“She claimed to be a 5ft 2ins tall girl with blonde hair and green eyes born in Hereford, a court heard.The undercover officer told Dowd she had moved to Wales after being taken into care because her mum “was a druggy”, a court heard.Opening the case yesterday, Prosecutor Rupert Doswell said a police officer, only referred to as Alex, who was undercover in an online capacity as part of an investigation into child sex offenders.She created a false profile and declared herself to be aged 16 on her profile to comply with the site’s rules.
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