The sentence given to Robert John Lupton-Le Masurier, who was snared by online paedophile hunter Cheyenne O’Connor posing as a 13-year-old boy on the gay dating website Grindr, was described as an act of ‘mercy’ by Relief Magistrate Sara Fitz.
She said that she had reduced the length of sentence from nine months to seven after reading a letter from an expert about the effects that prison can have on a deaf person.
Mrs Fitz said that she was taking into account deafness in terms of the additional hardship the defendant would suffer in prison. ‘Those hardships are very well set out in the report,’ she said.
But after the case Miss O’Connor said: ‘I don’t think it should have been reduced just because he was deaf. What difference does it make if it is five months for 12 months inside. He is still going to get the same grief.’
She vowed to continue her work to trap people who want to try to meet children.
Lupton-Le Masurier, (41), of Chevalier Road, admitted a charge of attempting to meet a child of 13 following sexual grooming.
He was made the subject of a five-year restraining order limiting his use of computers and also told that it will be at least five years before he can apply to be removed from the Sex Offenders Register.
