A university computer expert wanted to meet a 13-year-old girl for sex and "naughty things", a court has heard. Steven Woltering told someone he believed to be a child that he had a "fantasy" of teaching a youngster about sex and said he would take condoms to their meeting. In fact the defendant was communicating with an adult operating a decoy account who subsequently passed details of their interaction to the police.
Swansea Crown Court heard when police arrested Woltering he told them his life was "ruined" but he now maintains he has memory issues about the offending. A probation report into the 52-year-old has concluded he poses a high risk of causing harm to children unless to engages with a sex offenders course.
The court heard Woltering had been communicating with a decoy account purporting to be 13-year-old gir girl on the Chat-Avenue application. During the conversations defendant asked the decoy if she was a virgin and whether she "touched" herself, told her he masturbated twice a day and she could watch him, and said he had a "fantasy" of teaching a youngster about sex. He also asked her where she lived. When the decoy said she lived near Liverpool he began to check travel times and distances to the city. He also asked whether the girl wanted to go for coffee and do "naughty things" before adding that he would take condoms. Woltering later told the girl his wife was away for two weeks and he could travel to see her.
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Details of the conversations were passed to police and in May 2021 officers went to Woltering's home address. When arrested and cautioned he said: "I have never done anything like this before – it is going to ruin my life" before pointing officers to the relevant phones and electronic devices. The court heard police found a total of 21 images of children being sexually abused on one of the devices, though it was not possible to say when they had been downloaded, along with evidence of internet searches having been carried out using phrases such as "young teen". However much of the chatlog history of his online conversations was missing. The court heard Woltering had been working as a senior IT leader at the University of Oxford before resigning from his job.
On the day he was due to stand trial Steven Woltering, of Tyn y Berllan, Craig Cefn Parc, Clydach, Swansea Valley, admitted attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity and to three counts of making indecent images of children of categories A, B, and C. He has no previous convictions. Despite his admissions to police upon arrest the defendant now says he has a lack of memory of the offending
Jon Tarrant, for Woltering, said the defendant was "clearly quite a complex individual" and said a probation report had suggested that his client's issues with memory may be a form of "shield" about what is very emotive offending. The advocate said not only was there a realistic prospect of rehabilitation in Woltering's case but that rehabilitation would be a necessity and he invited the court to follow the recommendations of the pre-sentence report and pass a sentence which would allow the defendant to do the Horizon sex offenders course.
Judge Christopher Vosper KC noted while the pre-sentence report had assessed Woltering as posing a high risk of causing physical, sexual, and psychological harm to children it had concluded that the only way to reduced that risk would be for the defendant to "engage in a meaningful way" with a sex offenders programme. The judge said that given everything he had read about the defendant he was "just about persuaded that the prospect of rehabilitation outweighs the need for immediate custody".
With discounts for his guilty pleas Woltering was sentenced to nine months in prison for the inciting charge and to nine months for the possession of indecent images charges with the terms to run consecutively making a total sentence of 18 months which was suspended for two years. The defendant was ordered to complete a rehabilitation course and a Horizon sex offenders course.
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