A knife-carrying paedophile was snared after a “graphic” and “extraordinary” exchange with someone online he thought was a 13-year-old girl.
Ian Tankard, 49, of Norton Hill, Windmill Hill, Runcorn, was in reality communicating with an adult decoy from a “hunter group”. The messages continued for what would later form around “500 pages” of evidence.
Frances Willmott, prosecuting, told Chester Crown Court on Friday things came to a head when Tankard was confronted and police were called to “an ongoing incident” on August 12 and arrested him. In custody, officers found he was in possession of a “Stanley knife”.
