Child sex offender jailed for eight years

A man who pleaded guilty to several child sex offences has been jailed for eight years.

Douglas Bowyer, 67, from Boston, had thousands of indecent images and videos of children, and engaged in sexual communication with children over almost 20 years, Lincolnshire Police said.

The force said he admitted to posing as a 19-year-old called Danny and to speaking to about 50 children. Bowyer also referred to himself as "a stereotypical dirty old man".

During sentencing at Lincoln Crown Court on Friday, he was told to register as a sex offender for life and was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order.

Bowyer was arrested in November 2020 and more than 19,000 indecent images and 628 indecent videos were found on 21 devices, police said.

The force said he used the apps such as Chat Avenue and Snapchat to communicate with his victims.

At a hearing in April this year, Bowyer pleaded guilty to the following offences:

• Engaging in sexual communication with a child
• Two counts of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child
• Three counts of causing or inciting a girl aged 13 to 15 to engage in sexual activity
• Attempting to cause or incite a girl aged 13 to 15 to engage in sexual activity
• Six counts of making indecent photographs/pseudo-photographs of a child
• Possessing a prohibited image of a child
• Possessing extreme pornographic image/images portraying rape
• Possessing extreme pornographic image/images portraying an act of intercourse/oral sex with a dead/alive animal

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