What was supposed to be a three-year sentence has been raised by eighteen months, after a British judge extended the sentence of a pedophile who used an Internet chat room to "groom" a pair of 13-year-old girls for sex.
Lord Justice Kay extended the sentence of 36-year-old electronics engineer Michael Wheeler October 15, making the total time four and a half years behind bars, according to Reuters. Kay eluded the limits of current British sex crime sentencing by imposing the sentences based on indecent assault charges for which Wheeler was also convicted in hand with the underage sex charges.
"Men contemplating involvement with much younger girls via Internet chat rooms with a view to sexual activity should appreciate that the court is likely to pass a longer sentence than this in the future," the judge said in extending the sentence, also saying he backed legislation in Parliament that would allow more severe sentences for sex criminals.
The maximum now under British law, when underage sex involves a girl 13 or older, is two years, but it is life if it involves a girl younger than 13, Reuters said. "When parliament has finished its reconsideration of the law relating to sexual offending," Kay said, "the courts may be able to take an even more punitive view of such offences."
he said.
