Dad snared paedophile after police and pervert's mum failed to act - The Coventry Observer

Dad snared paedophile after police and pervert's mum failed to act

Coventry Editorial 6th Oct, 2015 Updated: 28th Oct, 2016   0

A FATHER who set up a Facebook page as a teenage girl in a bid to keep tabs on who his daughter was communicating with was horrified when the ‘girl’ was contacted by a paedophile.

When he called the number left by the paedophile, the phone was answered by Coventry pervert Peter McCallum’s mother who simply accused him of encouraging her son.

And, after contacting his local police seemed to get no response, step-dad Neil Ivall took matters into his own hands to trap McCallum.

As a result, McCallum (33) of Donegal Close, Canley, Coventry, was jailed for 32 months at Coventry Crown Court.




McCallum pleaded guilty to two charges of attempting to meet under-age girls following sexual grooming. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

Prosecutor Tom Kenning said: “He was arrested on July 11 near his home after he thought he was communicating with a female aged 13 and an 11-year-old during the same conversation.”


In fact the Facebook page McCallum believed was that of a 13-year-old called Sophie Piggott had actually been set up by Mr Ivall, from Dunstable, Bedfordshire.

Judge Philip Gregory said: “Vigilante action of this type has attracted certain adverse publicity, but this man embarked on this only after he had been trying to help his daughter, and after he had spoken to this man’s mother to warn him off, and having contacted Bedfordshire police who did nothing about it.”

Far from being warned off, McCallum’s communication with ‘Sophie’ increased, and he sent her an intimate photo and asked what ‘she’ was wearing and if ‘she’ had sisters, said Mr Kenning.

Told ‘she’ was with an 11-year-old friend, he also began to communicate directly with that ‘girl’, or so he thought, and said he wanted to perform oral sex on them and for them to do so to him.

He arranged to meet both ‘girls’ and suggested they could go to a field near his home to carry out those sexual acts.

But instead it was Mr Ivall and his partner who turned up and demanded McCallum’s phone, which he handed over.

As other people gathered, they suggested McCallum contact the police – and he did so and admitted what he had been doing.

Daniel Oscroft, defending, said: “He presented himself to the authorities, although of course that was because he knew the game was up.

“Notwithstanding some assertions in the pre-sentence report he accepts he is attracted to young girls.   It’s not something he wants to have or wants to do.

“He was suffering from depression at the time.  He’d lost five family members in succession over a couple of months.  That formed the catalyst for this descent into aberrant behaviour.”

Mr Oscroft said McCallum, who has never had an intimate relationship with anyone, recognises he has got a problem and at present poses a danger to young girls.

Urging the judge to pass a community order with a three-year sex offenders’ programme he added: “This aberrant behaviour needs to be stopped before he goes on to actually harm a girl.”

But jailing McCallum, Judge Gregory told him: “You have a deeply unhealthy and strong sexual interest in young teenage girls.

“.. It must be clearly understood that men who groom girls of 13 and hope to meet them with a view to serious sexual activity will find themselves severely punished for such behaviour.”

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