By Charlotte Webster-
A man who attempted to meet 12-year-old girls in Wolverhampton for sexual activity has been jailed.
Aaron Kainth, aged 24, from Rooker Crescent, Wolverhampton, believed he was talking to young girls when he sent them messages attempting to meet them for sex in April of last year. However, Kainth was stopped in his tracks with specialist support from West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU) working together with officers from West Midlands Police.
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He was arrested and later charged with a number of offences.
He appeared at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Monday (9 March) where he pleaded guilty to one count each of arranging or facilitating commission of a child sex offence, attempting to cause a female child aged under 13 to engage in sexual activity, attempting to cause a child a under 13 to look at an image of sexual activity and two counts of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child.
He was jailed for seven years and two months and placed on the sex offenders register for life.
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Detective Inspector Chris Brown, from our Major Crime Team, said: “Kainth displayed predatory behaviour. He wanted to meet up and have sex with a child of 12 and thought the person he was talking to online was of that age. Instead he was talking to one of our undercover officers.
“We are pleased that we were able to stop Kainth from attempting to talk to children online and now he is behind bars is no longer a threat to young girls.”
Specialist undercover policing units targeting online child abuse made about 1,665 arrests in England and Wales between October 2022 and September 2023. Many of these cases involved offenders who groomed children online and arranged meetings to sexually abuse them.
A separate national police operation (the Grooming Gangs Taskforce) recorded over 550 arrests of suspected child predators in its first year up to March 2024.
In the following nine months of 2024 alone, another 597 suspects were arrested through the same taskforce.
Taken together, these targeted operations alone show well over 2,000 arrests in roughly a year or slightly longer, many involving grooming or attempts to arrange sexual meetings with children.
Wider estimate across the UK
Law-enforcement agencies report that the total number of arrests related to child-sexual-abuse crimes is much higher, with police in the UK are arresting around 1,000 suspected paedophiles every month.
This equates to approximately to 12,000 arrests per year, and includes offences such as online grooming, sexual communication with a child, possession or sharing of abuse images, arranging or attempting to meet a child for sexual activity
A total of 86,962 sexual offences against children were recorded by police in 2022–2023 in the UK., including grooming, exploitation, rape, and attempts to arrange sexual meetings.
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