Brownhills man who abused young girl and took explicit videos from others to be sentenced
A judge delays sentencing 23-year-old with “clear and plain” sexual interest in children to consider the length of the prison time he will serve
A 23-year-old man who sexually abused a young girl and invited others to send him explicit images has been been warned that he will be going to prison for a long time.
Michael Ferguson, of Brownhills, appeared before a crown court judge to be sentenced after pleading guilty to almost 40 offences including touching a child under 13, possessing indecent photos and video including some of the worst kind, and attempting “prolific” sexual communications with children.
He used platforms popular with teens including Snapchat and gaming app ‘Tiya’ to meet girls as young as 12-year-old, engaging in sexual conversation, requesting video reels, threatened one child that he would post an image of her online if she didn’t sent him more.
Mr Philip Vollans, prosecuting, told Wolverhampton Crown Court: “There were aggravating facts in this case. Some of the images were moving footage. He’s got previous convictions and had entered guilty pleas for those.
“Following a surprise visit officers checked his phones and it became apparent that the defendant had been in communication with children on several platforms seeking indecent images from them. In addition he was abusing a child.”
Mr Vollans said the defendant convicted of two offences of possessing indecent images dating to 2019 when he was a teenager. He was made subject to a 12-month referral order, but he carried on his offending behaviour while it was in force. These included sexual assault of a child under 13, making five category A images, 10 category B and 310 category C between 2020 and 2022 and attempting to engage in sexual communication with several girls online.
The court heard West Midlands Police child sex exploitation team retrieved 267 pages of messages exchanged with two different victims, one of whom was just 13. He lied to her, stating he was aged 15 when there was “clear disparity” in age.
Mr Nicholas Wragg, defending, said Ferguson had Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) which affected his communication skills and behaviour. He was described as being “quiet” and had lost a brother who died in an accident and had spiralled into “a perfect storm”. “In terms of dangerousness - there is clearly and plainly a sexual interest in children which the court must have regard to. And the real concern is what risk he may pose in future.”
After listening to the barristers in the case, sentencing judge, Jonathan Gosling told Ferguson, who is already listed on the sex offenders’ register, that he wanted to a few days to reflect on what he’d heard and the probation reports before passing sentence on Monday.
The judge said: “Ferguson I am not going sentence you today. I need to think about it carefully. Your barristers have put a lot of work into your case for which you should be grateful.”
The Crown Prosecution Service also offered no evidence in a further 20 offences relating to the same case.