Paedophile hunters trap man who tried to meet ‘12-year-old girl’

A group of paedophile hunters detained a man who tried to arrange a meeting with who he believed to be a girl aged 12 after making “sexually explicit suggestions”.

David Asser, 49, of Hertford Road, Enfield has been sentenced to more than two years in prison and will be on the sex offenders register for a decade.

Asser began communicating with the girl on an online chatroom in November 2020.

Despite the “girl” stating she was 12, he continued speaking to her, including making sexually explicit suggestions and making arrangements to meet her.

However, unbeknown to Asser, he was actually communicating with an adult who was pretending to be a young girl.

On December 7, he went to meet the girl in Enfield, but when he arrived he was confronted and detained by an online civilian group.

Police were called and Asser was arrested, with items seized from his address revealing his attempts to groom and sexually exploit the 12-year-old girl he thought he was talking to.

DC Lee Jeffrey, from the Met Police, said: “David Asser was fully aware of the age of the girl he believed he was communicating with yet despite this, he persisted in making sexually explicit suggestions to her and then made efforts to physically meet with her.

“His actions are deplorable and it is right he has been held to account for this.”

Asser pled guilty in August to one count of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a girl under 16 and one count of attempting to meet a girl under 16 following grooming.

On Tuesday, November 23 he was sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court to 28 months’ imprisonment and will be placed on the sex offenders register for ten years.