Fantasising paedophile Lee Donaldson who preyed on young girls is jailed

A paedophile who posed as a 14-year-old boy so he could prey on teenage girls across the UK has been jailed for five and a half years.

Lee Donaldson, left, from Washington, acted as a "shoulder to cry on" to girls aged between 13 and 15 who he met in chat rooms.

But Newcastle Crown Court heard the 36-year-old had lured his victims into engaging in explicit exchanges and encouraged them to perform sex acts online.

Some of his victims were persuaded to email him explicit photographs of themselves, after he sent them pictures of himself as a teenager to make his story seem more convincing.

Donaldson, who has no previous convictions, was arrested when he came to the attention of police investigating users of child porn sites on the web.

When police raided his home in October 2007, they found a stash of more than 4,500 indecent images and videos of children, some of which were in the most serious categories.

Investigators also found evidence that he had been sharing his sickening images with like-minded paedophiles.

It was during the investigation his conduct with the six young girls, who lived in the North East, Yorkshire, and Gwent, Wales, was exposed.

Donaldson of Fatfield Park, admitted six charges of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity between January and October 2007, seven charges of making indecent photographs of a child, two charges of distributing such images and five of possessing such images.

At his sentencing hearing yesterday, Donaldson who lives with his parents, denied he would have ever actually tried to meet the girls or carry out any of the sexual acts he had discussed with them.

From the witness box he described himself as a "shy" person with few friends, who has problems in engaging in face-to-face conversations with others.

He said he would never have had the "bottle" to meet any of his victims.
He told the court: "I had a fantasy I could have been someone else. I could pretend to be somebody else for the purposes of that fantasy."

But Judge Christopher Prince, said he was satisfied Donaldson would have tried to meet one of the girls in the hope of having some form of sexual contact with her.

Judge Prince said Donaldson must register as a sex offender for life, is disqualified from working with children for life, and must abide by the rules of a sexual offences prevention order for the rest of his life.

He said: "People have been extremely disturbed and very upset to find they were talking to a man of your age. Teenage girls must be protected from such online predatory paedophiles as you."

DCI Andy Potts, of Sunderland Area Command, said: "The sentencing of Donaldson today is the result of a full investigation by Northumbria Police.

"Acting on information received from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, Donaldson was initially arrested for possession of indecent images of children.

"During the course of that investigation an examination of his computer revealed that he had been accessing chat-rooms to contact girls under the pretence that he was a 14-year-old boy.

"Donaldson then built up a relationship with these girls online before persuading them to perform sexual acts upon themselves.

"We will continue to work with other agencies to ensure the protection of vulnerable people from this type of criminal.

Sunderland Echo.