A man helping people with learning difficulties at a Margate university has avoided jail for perverse messages involving torture and rape.

Paul Roberts, 39, was finally caught in a police sting when he swapped sex message with someone he believed shared his perverted fantasies.

Roberts, who was working and staying at the university, thought he was chatting with someone with access to two children aged 11 and five years.

But as undercover officers in Kent invited him to a meeting Roberts suspected he was under investigation and wiped his computer.

Prosecutor Jim Harvey told Canterbury Crown Court that said police seized his mobile phone and revealed he had also been sending sick torture and rape messages to another person.

He said that Roberts, who admitted four charges of distributing 15 indecent photographs and videos, also admitted posting obscene articles on the media forum WhatsApp between February and May last year

Kathryn Sheridan, defending, told the judge that when Roberts was arrested “he was a very relieved young man.

“This is a very rare case when someone arrested in sex offences relating to children is so open and frank.

“He openly accepts that he has a problem which has gone on for some considerable time.”

She said Roberts, who now lives in Tranmere and works at a bar, suffered a "sadistic childhood" and responded in the only way he knew, "through violence and sadism”.

“This man is desperate. He has been struggling with sadistic fantasies since the age of eight. He has tried to put it behind him.

“If Roberts is given a prison sentence, he has been assessed by a probation officer and a doctor as posing a significant risk of suicide.”

Ms Sheridan added: “There is a little bad in the best of us, and there is a little good in the worst of us and he has shown significant remorse.”

The Judge, Recorder Martin Oldham, gave him a two year jail sentence suspended for two years and ordered him to sign the Sex Offender’s Register.

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