A pregnant council worker leaked a sex offender's address to an anti-paedophile group which led to a 30-strong mob arriving at his house threatening to burn it down. Grimsby Live reports that Chloe Carr, who was working for Hull City Council, told the paedophile hunters that the individual "deserves all he gets" and was "bloody awful" and "disgusting" but asked them not to reveal where they got the confidential information about him from.
Hull Crown Court was told that the sex offender was rushed to a new address in the wake of the incident. The court heard that Carr's unprofessional actions helped to "whip up a frenzy" and were "not a public service at all" because they "destabilised" convicted criminals and risked making them "unpredictable".
Carr, 23, of Taylor Avenue, Cottingham, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, pleaded guilty to unlawfully disclosing private data to an online website without consent. She denied misconduct in public office as a customer service adviser for Hull City Council by abusing the public's trust and disclosing confidential and personal data between June 4 and July 2, 2020, and that charge was dropped.
Charlotte Baines, prosecuting, said Carr was employed at the time by an agency to work for the city council and assist in signposting members of the public towards help that might be available. She was working from home in Anlaby as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and there was a work chat group in which she could liaise with colleagues.
Another employee messaged the group to say that a call had been taken from a convicted sex offender, who had got in touch with the council's customer services team requesting a food parcel to be sent to him as he had been put into emergency accommodation because his details had been shared on Facebook. The address of where he would be living was shared by the chat group but Carr passed the details on to an anti-paedophile group based in Hull.
She informed the online paedophile hunters that she was in possession of details on the sex offender but asked to be kept anonymous. She said in messages that it was "disgusting" that the sex offender remained in Hull and would be living near a school.
Carr was asked by the anti-paedophile group if she had proof of the man's details and replied: "Yes, everything is 100 per cent" and confirmed that she had his street address. She told the group that she worked for Hull City Council and received a reply asking if she could share that address with them.
Carr supplied the group with a screenshot of the sex offender's address and said: "This can't come back to me due to my work." The paedophile hunters asked her for the number of the house. She told the online group that it was "so wrong" to put the man there and added: "I don't believe in it. I will look now."
The anti-paedophile group thanked Carr and told her: "Thank you so much". The group added that the details would be going online soon. She replied: "Please don't mention it's come from the council" because records were kept and it might "come back to me" because of the disclosure. "The defendant made it abundantly clear that she worked for Hull City Council and the information needed to be kept anonymous," said Miss Baines.
At 6.40pm, the sex offender contacted the police to say that he had received a food parcel from Hull City Council but that people were at his door trying to break into the property and he had been warned to "get out now or they would kill him and burn down the property" There were 30 people in the mob outside the house.
At 7.19pm, the anti-paedophile group used Facebook Messenger to thank Carr for her information and to tell her that the sex offender had been moved from the house. Carr replied: "I am so happy. He is bloody awful. Happy to have helped everyone." There was further contact during the following days, with further messages about the sex offender.
The police later identified Carr as being involved in the chats after they realised that there was a problem. They went to her then home in Anlaby and seized two laptops. She told police that, when a colleague shared details of the sex offender, she was "quite angry because she was pregnant" and that after someone in her chat group said that something needed to be done, she took it upon herself to contact the anti-paedophile group and to supply further details. "She said that she knew it was wrong," said Miss Baines. "She was kicked out of the works chat. She wasn't allowed to return to work, one assumes."
Helen Chapman, mitigating, told the court that the sex offenders that Carr had been referring to were people who had been before the courts, been found guilty or sentenced and had "done their time and come out" of prison. "These groups exist on Facebook in order to whip up a frenzy," said Miss Chapman.
Carr was heavily pregnant at the time and the messages were exchanged just a fortnight before she gave birth to her son in July 2020. He was now nearly two years old. The offence was "short-lived but persistent" and Carr was in "something of a vulnerable position" at the time because the boy's father had left her after she told him that she was pregnant.
"It didn't help that she was working from home," said Miss Chapman. Carr was now on Universal Credit and child benefit. "She is just beginning to look for work," said Miss Chapman. Carr had no previous convictions.
Carr was fined £500, to be paid at £50 a month.
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