Connor Lane sent a series of explicit messages before later saying it was 'just a joke'
AN ARMY chef caught with condoms in his pocket while waiting for who he thought was an 11-year-old girl has been found guilty of child grooming.
In explicit messages sent before the meet-up, Connor Lane talked to who he thought was a pre-teen girl about having sex, asking her if she had big boobs and 'how far she had gone with a guy'.
But instead of meeting the young girl, the Army chef was caught by paedophile hunters who had set up the fake account on the social networking site Tagged in the name of Jessica H.
Met by two vigilantes at McDonald's in Chelmsford, Essex, Lane desperately tried to make excuses, even claiming that "it was only a joke".
In video of the confrontation, he tells the pair: "It was just a joke that went too far."
Lane denied child grooming but was found guilty at Basildon Crown Court last week and faces sentencing next year.
Vile chat logs kept by the team show Lane, who was on leave from Cyprus, asking the girl for her age and then continuing with increasingly graphic questions.
In the dozens of sickening messages sent to the account over 10 days, Lane had asked the girl "would you kiss me and more babe" before sending her a message asking: "do you have boobs babe".
He also asked her about where they could meet, also making references to sex acts with the young girl and asking her to wear short skirts when they met.
But in the confrontation, he claimed he was just going to take the young girl home and had not believed the account was owned by an 11-year-old girl.
The court heard Lane arrived with the condoms in his wallet at around 8pm on March 28 and was apprehended by the group until police arrived and he was arrested and charged.
Prosecuting, Matthew Bagnell said a founding member of Internet Interceptors had posed as the girl on the over-18s website.
He said: "The profile was given a picture and a profile age of 19 as Tagged is for over-18s.
"Having set up the profile, Internet Interceptors then monitored the profile and there came a point in time when Connor Lane engaged in a chat conversation with Jess."
He added: "One of the first questions that he asked was how old Jess was and the response was that she was 11-years-old.
"Thereafter the conversation fell into four categories, where Connor Lane tried to find out certain information: to establish her location, her willingness to meet him and what sexual activity she was willing to engage in should they meet.
"It is the prosecution case that the conversation that ensued was nuanced."
The prosecution alleged that the messages started off "fairly innocent" but "moved to talking about touching Jess' bottom and breasts and suggestions of touching the vagina, digital penetration and eventually the suggestion of sexual intercourse".
Lane defended his comments as "general questions" and claimed he knew the account was fake and he was not speaking to an 11-year-old girl.
He claimed the conversation was a bid to catch out the person responsible for the Jess profile, but the jury rejected his excuse and found him guilty of attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming
He will be sentenced on January 27.
