PAEDOPHILE hunting groups are commonplace across the UK now with the vigilantes often taking the law into their own hands in order to catch perverts.
And Berkshire residents who have attempted to make contact and have sex with young children have not escaped the groups’ probes.
Here are the names of convicted paedophiles with a connection to Berkshire who were exposed by paedophile hunters.
David Nix
41-year-old David Nix will spend more than two years behind bars after he sent sexual messages to six accounts posing as underage girls on Facebook.
Nix, of Wintringham Way, Purley, Reading, told the girls he wanted to meet up with them for sex at a hotel, asked for them to be boyfriend and girlfriend, and told them they looked “sexy.”
He told them he would get them pregnant when they were 16 and that it was okay to have a relationship with an older man, prosecutor Chetna Patel said.
Nix is confronted by paedophile hunters
Paedophile hunters contacted police about Nix’s communications and officers attended his address in August 2019.
In a police interview, he said he was aware that what he was doing was “wrong” and asked officers not to treat him like he was “stupid”, adding that he wasn’t going to “deny it”.
Sentencing, Judge Sarah Campbell said: “You were not lured into our offending. You were the one to contact the various girls involved.
“You are a high risk to children.”
Nix was sentenced to two years and eight months in jail for six counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.
Anthony Gillam
Prison time will not be served by a Bracknell man who arranged to meet up for sex with a fake 13-year-old girl.
Anthony Gillam, of Warfield Park, Bracknell, messaged a decoy Facebook account that was posing as the young girl back in June 2018.
Despite being told she was just 13 years old, Gillam arranged for them to meet at Premier Inn hotel in Slough.
Gillam is confronted by police
Continuing to message her, the 50-year-old asked her for topless photos and told her not to tell her mother about the hotel booking.
However, Gillam cancelled the hotel on the day the pair was supposed to meet.
Following this, the woman behind the Facebook account contacted the paedophile hunting group ‘No Excuses.’
Defence counsel argued time behind bars would not benefit Gillam, and that rehabilitation activities were more appropriate.
Judge Kirsty Real agreed with this argument, telling Gillam he would serve a suspended sentence instead.
Shahmaan Ahmed
Ahmed was not exposed by paedophile hunters but instead pretended to be a paedophile hunter himself.
He travelled to Reading with the intention of raping two children in August 2020 and even bought sweets for the youngsters.
The children were not real, but Ahmed was arrested by officers from Thames Valley’s Paedophile Online Investigation Team.
He was sentenced to eight years in jail after being found guilty of child sex offences by a jury back in February 2021.
DC Nick Hook, from TVP’s paedophile investigation team, said: “Ahmed was armed with excuses when he was arrested and throughout his trial.
“However, the evidence was overwhelming and the jury saw through his feeble attempts to convince them he was in fact a ‘good guy’ trying to expose others involved in the sexual abuse of children.
Ahmed brought sweets and sex toys to his arranged meeting
“Ahmed’s intentions were clear, he went to Reading that day in the belief that he was going to abuse children.
“A particularly distressing part of this case is that he brought sweets with him as gifts for the children he believed he was there to abuse, the youngest being just three years old.
“It is important to acknowledge that these children were not real and on this occasion Ahmed was not posing a danger to any children when he travelled to Reading.
Ahmed is confronted by police
“This is a very distressing case and I understand it could cause some concerns in the community, but we will always thoroughly investigate reports of this nature.
“If you are concerned about someone’s behaviour or you think you might have information which could help an investigation like this one, please contact your local police force on 101.”
Zubair Shah
A Slough divorcee who was looking for a girlfriend travelled 200 miles to meet a 13-year-old girl for sex but was confronted by a group of adults who had been pretending to be the child.
Zubair Shah was jailed in September 2020 after accepting having made the trip with the hope of sleeping with what he thought was an underage girl, one of 11 child sex offences which he admitted before a judge.
The man, who is a father, had believed he was speaking to two girls, aged 13 and 12, for three months without realising he was being tricked by a paedophile hunting group going by the name Strike UK.
In a video which had been viewed more than 170,000 times, the paedophile hunters accused Shah of having travelled from his home in Slough, to Elsecar in Barnsley, South Yorkshire - an eight hour round trip - for the promise of meeting a fictional child.
A picture of Shah from his social media account, which was widely shared online following him being accosted, included the caption, "I am looking for girlfriend after marriage".
Members of the self-proclaimed paedophile hunting group accused Shah of having purchased clothes for the fictional 13-year-old and her five-year-old sister, who they alleged Shah had also intended to meet - although he was only charged in relation to the older girl.
Shah was filmed apologising profusely and calling himself "stupid" before asking the paedophile hunters to kill him as they asked him why he had been sending sexual communications to the child.
The video showed Shah, wearing a baseball cap and a rain jacket, compliantly wheeling away his travel case to get into a police car which arrived to take him into custody.
Speaking through an Urdu interpreter in Reading Crown Court on July 24, Shah admitted nine counts of attempting to cause or incite a child to engage in sexual activity, two counts of arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence.
He was sentenced to seven years in jail in September 2020.
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