A PAEDOPHILE was caught by uncover officers online after he revealed to them he had fantasies about young children.

Tristan Box, of Heather Hill Close, Earley, was using an encrypted messaging site to speak to who he thought was ‘sympathisers’ about his fantasies.

The 45-year-old was caught telling the undercover officers between July and October 2021 that he would like to have sexual relations with young children.

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He was then subsequently arrested by police who seized his devices where more than 20,000 images were found.

Box pleaded guilty in December 2021 to three counts of making indecent photographs pseudo-photographs of a child and two counts of publishing an obscene article.

Adam Squibbs, prosecuting, told Reading Crown Court that in the conversations with the undercover officers, who had fictional children for the purpose of the investigation, that Box asked for images of the children as well as a pair of knickers.

He also attempted to arrange meetings with the officers and their fictional children.

Mr Squibbs said: “The last conversation is him discussing in some detail about [the officer] visiting him with his stepchildren and taking them somewhere fun so they are in a rewarding mood.

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“He said any level of play would be a dream for me.”

Dana Bilan, defending Box, said the former IT worker had a drug addiction at the time and had been made redundant from work.

She said: “It was a very unpleasant set of circumstances and a very unpleasant set of conversations. He accepts what he said was wrong and he accepts that he needs help.

“He worked in IT for over 27 years but he was made redundant over the pandemic and was made homeless.

“It all seems to slide downwards when his partner of five years left him. He had no job [and was] struggling with a new drug addiction.”

Mr Squibb previously mentioned that Box had said in a police interview that he was ‘hurt by his partner leaving and children can’t leave him’.

Sentencing, Judge Hassan Khan said: “The conversations with officers are particularly graphic and disturbing. One of the most chilling things you said was you don’t see the issue if children consent or not to the sexual activities.

“There is no doubt in my mind that you pose a huge risk of sexual harm to young children.”

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He was sentenced to 20 months for the category A images and to run concurrently he was sentenced to an additional four months for category B, two months for category C and eight months each for the conversations with the undercover officers.

The judge added that he felt the risk Box posed was too high to suspend the sentence.