Paedophile hunters snared a sexual predator who attempted to meet up with what he thought was a 12-year-old girl.
David Asser, 49, from Enfield, confessed to one count of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a girl under the age of 16. He also admitted one count of attempting to meet a girl under the age of sixteen following grooming.
On Tuesday, he was jailed for 28 months, and he will be listed on the Sex Offenders Register for ten years.
Wood Green Crown Court heard how Asser began his online chats with the ‘girl’ in November last year. Even after the person said they were 12, Asser carried on talking to her and making sexually explicit suggestions.
Unknown to Asser, the girl was in fact an adult pretending to be a youngster. Over the next week, he continued to the sexually explicit suggestions while also making arrangements for them to meet.
When he went to meet the girl he thought he had groomed on December 7 in Enfield’s Mandeville Road, he was confronted and detained by an online civilian group.
Police were called and Asser was arrested. They seized items from his home which laid bare his attempts to groom and sexually exploit the twelve-year-old girl he thought he was communicating with.
“David Asser was fully aware of the age of the girl he believed he was communicating with,” said the Met’s DC Lee Jeffrey from the North Area Command Unit.
“Yet despite this, he persisted in making sexually explicit suggestions to her and then made efforts to physically meet with her.
“His actions are deplorable and it is right he has been held to account for this.”
