Worcestershire man jailed for child sex offences after police operation
Christopher Webb, 38, was caught by under cover officers
A 38-year-old man has been jailed after being convicted of attempting sexual activity with a child, following a police operation.
Christopher Webb, from Tilesford, near Pershore was sentenced at at Worcester Crown Court on Friday (24 April) after being found guilty of causing/inciting a child to engage in sexual activity with penetration, attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and attempting to meet a girl under 16 years of age following grooming.
He was sentenced to four years and six months for the first offence, ten months concurrently and a £228 victim surcharge for the second offence, and two years three months concurrently for the third offence.
He was also ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register with the police indefinitely and given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) lasting ten years.
Webb was caught by undercover West Mercia Police officers in March 2025 after he began communicating with and grooming who he believed to be a 12-year-old girl on Snapchat before moving the ‘conversation’ on to WhatsApp.
He sent explicit images of himself and asked for similar images from the 12-year-old child profile, before arranging to meet at Gloucester Train Station on 26th March 2025, after which he stated his intention to have sex with her.
Webb continued to express his sexual desires to the ‘girl’ until his arrest at the station where he encountered undercover officers.
On his arrest, Webb was found with a black bag containing an envelope full of girls' underwear with his home address on it.
Further phone searches confirmed his Snapchat account profile and web searches including ‘do under 16s need a train ticket,’ indicating he was aware his intended victim was underage.
Detective Constable Rich Britton, from West Mercia’s Online Child Sexual Exploitation Team (OCSET), said: “We are pleased to put this paedophile behind bars before he could carry out any of his disgusting intentions on an actual child, so this operation was a good result to protect potential victims from his depraved behaviour.
“Webb was caught red handed thinking he was speaking online to a girl, and we would warn any other individuals thinking of communicating with a child and attempting to arrange sexual activity like this to be warned it could be the police and you too could be sent to prison.”