Vile Thurcoft paedophile's sick 'princess rules' demands to schoolgirl during online grooming

Andrew Bird (30), of Zamor Crescent, Thurcroft, met the 15-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on an online chat forum and spoke to her online for four weeks in the summer of 2017 - during which time he persuaded her to perform sexual acts on herself and asked her to follow "princess rules" which included wearing a nappy and drinking from a bottle.

Bird, who also downloaded more than 3,000 indecent images of children to his mobile phone, was jailed for three years and two months at Sheffield Crown Court on Wednesday.

His offending was described as "sickening" by children's charity the NSPCC, which said chat apps needed more regulation.

The girl told police that Bird had first contacted her using the website Omegle which allows users to chat to randomly-selected people online.

"She told the defendant clearly many times that she was 15-years-old and he suggested that she move to Rotherham after she finished school," said Mr Matthew Donkin, prosecuting.

Bird began chatting with the girl for several hours a day, every day, and the conversation turned to what sort of sexual behaviour he was into - including domination and violence, the court was told.

Mr Donkin added: "He said he would like to shut her in a shed overnight with no food or water."

Bird (pictured) accessed the girls online shopping account and bought clothes on her wishlist - but would order them to his house.

"He said she could go to his house and try the clothes on," Mr Donkin said.

Bird asked the girl to perform a sexual act on herself on a few occasions so he could watch her online.

The girl's parents discovered the messages on their daughter's phone in August 2017 and contacted the police.

Detectives looking through the messages found references to "rape play" and role plays where Bird referred to himself as "daddy" and the girl as "princess" or "baby".

Police tracked him down using the address he had ordered clothes to and arrested him.

They analysed his phone and found 3,138 indecent images of children, including 860 of the most extreme kind of abuse - category A images.

Some of the children in the images were estimated to be as young as 18 months old.

They also discovered Bird had distributed 65 indecent images on messaging app Kik, using his computer, and found search terms for "five-year-old girl" and "rape play".

Detectives also found a conversation on Bird's Kik app in which he discussed a role play involving boys aged 12 and two.

Bird admitted to inciting a child to engage in penetrative sexual activity, sexual communications with a child, three counts of making indecent photographs of a child and one of distributing indecent photographs of a child.

Mr James Baird, mitigating, said Bird had no previous convictions and "met the criteria for a diagnosis of autism".

"He clearly has had difficulty recognising the impact that these offences have had on others," said Mr Baird.

Judge Rachael Harrison made an indefinite sexual harm prevention order banning Bird from contacting the victim or any child under the age of 16 without supervision from social services.

One count of possession of an extreme pornographic image was denied by Bird and ordered to lie on file.