Banbury man caught with sheep pornography gets suspended sentence

A would-be professional photographer who shared sexual messages with underage ‘girls’ also had sheep pornography on his computer.

Andrew Etherington offending came to light when the vigilante operating one of the decoy Facebook accounts with whom the 51-year-old was talking reported the explicit conversations to Greater Manchester Police.

Thames Valley Police launched an investigation of their own, as Etherington lived in Banbury.

Oxford Crown Court heard that Etherington had been speaking to two Facebook profiles operated by so-called paedophile hunter groups.

He asked the first ‘girl’, who purported to be 14 and living in Manchester, if she would be interested in having her ‘photograph taken’. He suggested paying her £10 for five photographs, which she could also ‘sell on the internet’. The suggestion was made in a series of voice calls after he said he did not want to commit the ‘idea’ to writing.

The second girl also claimed to be 14-years-old. He suggested they meet and said he wanted her to make a ‘list of things to do together’, asking her to think about ‘personal’ stuff and to ‘use her imagination’. He also asked what the ‘rules’ of meeting were.

When police trawled his computer, they also found extreme pornographic material 'apparently' showing a man having sex with a sheep.