Goan man convicted of sexually grooming two underage girls in UK

LONDON: A Goan man was convicted by the Isleworth Crown Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to sexually grooming two 12-year-old girls (actually a middle-aged woman volunteer with an Internet vigilante group posing online as two girls) and trying to meet them to commit further sexual offences.
The convict, Francisco Pereira, 30, who now lives with his uncle in Southall, hails from Panaji in Goa.
Sentencing was adjourned to July 11 and Pereira was released on bail on the condition that he did not apply for any travel documents. He was also put on the sex offenders’ register.
Pereira, dressed in an Adidas hooded top emblazoned with a Manchester United logo and jeans, stood in the dock and listened to the charges being read out to him via a Konkani interpreter as his family watched from the public gallery.
Pereira pleaded guilty to two charges of attempting to meet girls under the age of 16 following sexual grooming and two charges of attempting sexual communications with two underage girls. He had pleaded not guilty to the same charges at Uxbridge magistrates’ court in May.
The particulars of the offences were that between December 15 and 30, 2017, he attempted for the purposes of sexual gratification to communicate with two underage girls who he did not reasonably believe to be aged 16, and his communications with both girls were sexual. He also pleaded guilty to two charges of attempting to meet the two girls, following sexual grooming, having communicated with both on one or more previous occasions, and on December 29, 2017 attempting to meet both girls when he did not reasonably believe either of them to be 16 years old and intended to do something to both girls during or after the meeting, which if done would have amounted to an offence.
Pereira had in fact communicated online with a middle-aged woman posing as two young girls who was a volunteer with Wolf Pack Hunters, an Internet vigilante group. After sending sexually explicit photos and messages to both girls, he arranged to meet them in Southall. But instead of the girls, he met the paedophile hunters who, identifying him from photos he thought he had sent the girls, apprehended him and called the police. Officers then arrested Pereira.
A video of Pereira, who went to Don Bosco High School, being confronted by the World Pack Hunters, which the group posted online, went viral.
The court heard he had lost his job as a warehouse operative after his passport was seized by the police following his arrest and that he had no previous convictions.
Sarah Iskarous, defending Pereira, said: “He used to live in Goa, he has Portuguese nationality and since 2014 he has been in the UK working but he can no longer work as he does not have his passport. He lives with his uncle. I appreciate the court will be concerned about him absconding but his uncle who he lives with can offer a surety. He has been out of work since he was arrested and is burdened with the responsibility of helping his uncle out financially and paying rent and bills and sending money to his sick mother in India.”
But Judge Wood said: “I am not returning the passport because of his guilty pleas. This crime is clearly on the custody threshold in my view. Based on what I have heard and read you should expect a prison sentence,” he told Pereira.