A “PREDATORY” paedophile who exchanged vile video calls with a 14-year-old girl he met online has been jailed for almost four-and-a-half years.

Darren Brazier was subject to a suspended prison sentence and a court order designed to limit his access to children and the internet when he struck up a friendship with the teen last December on a sex fetish website.

Jailing the 37-year-old for four years and five months at Swindon Crown Court on Monday afternoon, Judge Jason Taylor QC said he had behaved in a predatory manner while putting on a façade for the authorities.

He told Brazier his victim, who he had also "screenshotted" in the shower while she was on a video call with him, had been vulnerable.

“She needed reassurance and protection not manipulation and abuse to gratify your own sexual desires,” Judge Taylor said.

“It is the experience of these courts that there is a high likelihood that in later years it will prove to be the case your actions in her formative years will have caused very serious harm, which will have long-lasting, if not life-long, consequences.”

He said Brazier had an ability to “groom professionals”.

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Prosecutor Jacinta Stringer earlier told the court Brazier had been convicted in 2010 and 2019 of indecent image charges. On the second occasion, he had been caught with a million child sex abuse images, having trawled the web obsessively to build up his vile collection.

In 2019, he was given a chance by Judge Taylor, who imposed a 22 month prison sentence suspended for two years and made a 10-year sexual harm prevention order.

A year later, on May 26, a police officer made an unannounced visit to the north Swindon home Brazier shared with his parents. When they looked through his phone it became clear he had deleted the Kik messenger app in breach of his sexual harm prevention order.

He was arrested two days later, when the police officers also discovered an iPad hidden under Brazier’s duvet that had been connected to the family's WiFi router. The police had not been told about the device, again in breach of his order.

Brazier’s Google Pixel mobile phone was analysed by digital forensics experts. Their efforts revealed Brazier had a small number of category C images of a teenage girl. The images included screenshots Brazier had taken of a video call with the girl, who had been in the shower while the older man watched.

Swindon Crown Court

The girl, who was from Scotland and 14-years-old at the time, was tracked down by detectives. She told police she had been chatting online with a man from England who she knew by his internet username “Woolfwood”.

Interviewed by police in August, Brazier claimed he had met the girl on sex fetish website Daddy Dom and Little Girl. In December 2019 and January 2020 they had exchanged explicit messages and nude images of each other. They had also video called each other.

Brazier, formerly of Thresher Drive but appearing in court via video link from Winchester prison, had earlier pleaded guilty to making indecent images of a child in category C and three breaches of his sexual harm prevention order.

Nicholas Wragg, defending, acknowledged the difficulty the defendant was in – having previously been ordered onto programmes designed to rehabilitate sex offenders.

He said: “It is unfortunate in this case as no doubt the court will consider, that the defendant has had previous opportunities and today an inevitable custodial sentence must proceed from this offending; it’s serious, there is a real child. The defendant has been working with a therapist [and is] very disappointed in himself.”

Brazier was said to be remorseful. While on remand at Winchester prison he was helping other inmates with their reading and writing and had obtained a cleaning job. He was supported by his family.