Coleraine man's sex case is legal first in Northern Ireland

By Q Radio News

A Coleraine man who admitted three counts of attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity has been ordered to complete a three year probation order.

60 year old Harold Burke from Quilly Road was warned that if he breached the order he would face jail.

Burke's case is a legal first in Northern Ireland.

It's the first time a case exposed by a so called Paedophile hunter group has been dealt with in the Crown Court.

BREAKING: A Coleraine man’s sex case is a legal first in Northern Ireland. 60 year old Harold Burke from Quilly Road was exposed by so called paedophile hunters and admitted attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity. pic.twitter.com/jVgImlYWtr

— Q Radio News (@qnewsdesk) March 11, 2020

Freeing Harold Samuel Burke at Antrim Crown Court, Judge Donna McColgan QC also imposed a lifelong Sexual Offences Prevention Order which prohibits the pervert from living anywhere, having a mobile phone or other device capable of accessing the web, using social media, having access to children or entering a relationship without approval from his designated risk manager.

At an earlier hearing Burke, from the Quilly Road in Coleraine, entered guilty pleas to three counts if attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity on dates between 25 June and 22 July 2018.

Opening the case against the 60-year-old, prosecuting counsel Mark Farrell told the court how three paedophile hunters from a group calling themselves Decoys Central and using the monikers Fiona, Zoe and Angel, created fake online profiles where they pretended to be 13 and 14-year-old girls.

Calling himself “Hal,” Burke “instigated conversations with who he believed were under age girls “ said the lawyer adding that when the group reported the offences to the PSNI, they produced transcripts of “sexually explicit conversations with the decoys.”

Describing the online chats as “extremely sexualised and extremely explicit,” Mr Farrell recounted how the conversations followed a basic modus operandi where Burke told the ‘girls’ they would have a “fantastic experience” before directing them to undress on how to perform sex acts on themselves.

The lawyer read tranches of the conversations into the court record but much of them are too explicit to quote.

In relation to conversations with ‘Zoe,’ the court heard that Burke was “asking to meet her for sex” and Mr Farrell submitted that a feature of the explicit chats was “an element of a degree of recruitment where the defendant asks the decoy, or underage girl, to try to recruit others to create, I suppose, a network.”

There was also, he further submitted, a “certain amount of pre-planning” as well as grooming by Burke who has a previous conviction for having indecent images of children.

Mr Farrell told the court given the nature of the investigations, “it’s a rather unusual case” but that the features of grooming, “recruitment” and Burke’s previous conviction aggravated the case.

The guilty pleas however was a mitigating factor, conceded the lawyer adding that while there was no victim as such, “it’s a serious matter.”

Defence counsel Aaron Thompson described Burke as a “desperately lonely and isolated individual” who had been dining heavily around the time of the offences as a result of his elderly mother dying.

He told the court that while Burke “has tried to start a new life....he had been shunned” by his family and made a social pariah by those who are aware of his convictions.

“There’s been a fair amount of sharing of sharing of this and the world and their wife know about this,” said Mr Thompson who revealed that Burke had been in jail on remand for eight months before being freed on bail.

He submitted given that “significant period of time in custody,” coupled with a probation recommendation for rehabilitative work, “I hope you do not have to send him back to custody...and the court must look at punishment and rehabilitation as it must always do.”

Judge McColgan, who told the court it was the first paedophile hunter case to reach the Crown Court, said while the offences did “cross the custody threshold....in mindful of the fact that he had served seven months in custody in real terms.”

“On the basis that he is prepared to engage with probation, I will give him a probation order for the maximum period I can pass which is three years,” said the judge.

As well as the probation and SOPO, Burke was ordered to stay on the police sex offenders register for five years.

Burke declined to comment as he left the court a short time later.