Disgraced Sunderland Labour councillor spared jail for ‘online grooming of girl’

A disgraced Sunderland Labour councillor who had explicit online sex chat with who he thought was a child has been spared jail.

Paul Middleton, who represented the Washington South ward, believed the child was living in a care home when he sent the shocking messages to her in 2017.

But Newcastle Crown Court heard the 44-year-old dad had actually been communicating with a police officer, who was involved in an online operation to snare paedophiles.The girl in the online conversations never existed. 

Prosecutor Jonathan Devlin told the court Middleton had made contact with a profile in a chatroom and was told the user “Maddie” was a kid.The conversation quickly became “sexually suggestive” and Mr Devlin said: “He asked Maddie what kind of fun she liked, asking whether that was naughty fun.

”She told him she lived in a care home.”Middleton asked the girl, in graphic terms, about sexual contact she had had with boys in the home, and, added Mr Devlin, “the conversation went on in that way”. The court heard as the chat became more explicit, the decoy child described it as “gross”. Mr Devlin added: 

“He said any behaviour like that with him wouldn’t be gross.” He sent her a friend request on a separate occasion, but there was no further correspondence between them.The court then heard Middleton was arrested last summer.

Middleton pleaded guilty to attempting to sexually communicate with a child.