A charity volunteer has admitted sending vile messages to children, including a video of himself masturbating.
Toni Stevens was caught in a sting by Plymouth Against Paedophiles who posed as a 14-year-old girl.
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He asked the girl if she would like to join him and his girlfriend for a threesome, sending a picture of her to the girl as well.
Stevens, 32, also revealed that he worked as a volunteer for Hele’s Angels, a charity in Torquay that has said that he was never in contact with children on their premises.
It also emerged that he had tried to meet several girls under the age of 14 for sex across the country and was speaking to at least 39 decoys when he was arrested.
He never actually went to meet any of the ‘victims’ but the paedophile group turned up at the charity to confront him.
He will be sentenced at Exeter Crown Court on December 19 when it is expected he will receive a lengthy prison sentence.
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After being confronted by the paedophile group he said ‘I’m ashamed of myself’.
He pleaded guilty at Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court to engaging in sexual communication with a child and attempting to cause a child aged 13 to 15 to watch or look at an image of sexual activity.
Chris, a member of the group, said: ‘Toni had been speaking to at least 39 underaged girls online and had arranged to meet a lot of girls countrywise. He told [several decoys] he would book a hotel room to facilitate the threesome.
‘In this sting, he originally told the decoy to meet him at Taunton Travelodge at 2pm on the Monday. He’d arranged to meet our other decoys in Coventry, Birmingham and Manchester.
‘Strangely, he had no intention of actually meeting up with any of them. We knew he wasn’t going to turn up to the meetings, so we called the charity that he volunteered at called Hele’s Angels.
‘We told a member of staff we had worked with Toni when previously homeless and had come into money and wanted to thank him.
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‘Toni does a lot of charity work in the community. I said to him when we met “the work you do in the community is outstanding”.
‘The best feeling you get from doing this is the reaction when these people finally realise that their lives are over. It’s not necessarily the convictions because the sentences can be lenient and varied.’
In the messages exchanged between Toni and the decoy, the conversation quickly turns from general chit-chat to sexually explicit content despite the Stevens knowing the girl he was talking to was 14.
Chris said: ‘Around 90 per cent will carry on the conversation while the rest will say no.
‘Within three or four pages of conversation, it turns quite sexually explicit and he said he wanted to meet up. He said “I have a girlfriend and she wants a threesome”.
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‘He then sends images of her naked. This woman was actually an ex-girlfriend from a few years ago and knew nothing about it.
‘Finally, he starts sending images of himself lying on the bed with his manhood out. The decoy never spurs him on but just goes along with it.
‘When we arrived, he’d gone to the shop so we went up there to meet him on his way back.
‘When we first met him he was in shock. He said “I thought they were over 18” but we showed him the chat logs where she says “I’m 14 is that okay?”.’
The UK Database was founded by Chris a decade ago and so far has over 60 million hits. The website allows anyone to search and find convicted paedophiles in their area.
Chris said: ‘My main aim is to give victims a voice. They get to a certain age where they want to speak out and often they’ll happily even say ‘yes, it was my dad, mum, uncle, aunty’.
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‘The police in Devon have been fantastic and have advised and supported us.
‘My website has over 60 million hits since we launched and lists the details of 67,000 convicted paedophiles.’
The charity, Hele’s Angels, which supports the local community, say Stevens never had contact with children while working there.
The chairman of Hele’s Angels, Dennis Hagger, said: ‘The man has worked for us since April as a volunteer. At no time did he have contact with children on our premises.
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‘He was never left alone while there were other people there.
‘We help adults with learning difficulties and mental health issues to get them food vouchers and help them to write CVs and get them into work. He had helped more than 50 people back into work since he started here.
‘We have been taking a bit of flak from people about this – but we have to move on. We’ve got a charity to run.’
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