A convicted paedophile from Warrington who threatened to have a 14-year-old boy cut up and acid thrown in his face has been jailed.
Nicholas Burns made the chilling threats to the boy after he commented on TikTok that a post Burns had put on social media showing his genitals was “disgusting.”
Burns, aged 31, who has a string of previous convictions, appeared in court yesterday (Wed) for making a malicious communication to the boy along with three other offences and was given a prison sentence totalling 26 months.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that they included breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) – the sixth time he has breached it.
Chris Taylor, prosecuting, said that between August 11 and 16 last year Burns, of Cleveland Road, Poplars and Hulme, Warrington, sent messages via Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp to two ’14-year-old girls.’
Unknown to him he was actually communicating with members of Elite, a paedophile hunting group. He sent one of them two pictures of himself topless and another topless and dancing.
Mr Taylor said that Burns admitted those two offences of attempted sexual communication with a child and also breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order by such communication.
On December 29 last year “he sent threatening messages to a 14-year-old boy who had seen an indecent post on social media by the defendant showing his genitals. The boy commented ‘disgusting’.
“He made online threats to the boy to cut the boy up and said he would pay £100 to someone to throw acid in his face,” said Mr Taylor.
When interviewed Burns denied the matters but later pleaded guilty.
Megan Edwards, defending, said that Burns was “an outcast” in his local community and gangs of balaclavered youths had repeatedly smashed his windows and he had had to move into a hotel.
He suffered from feelings of isolation and loneliness and so turned to online communications. “He simply wanted a friend and would have talked to anyone.”
She said he was diagnosed with autism in his 20s but has never been offered coping skills but “he was fully aware what he was doing was wrong and should not have been doing it.
Miss Edwards said that Burns, who has been in custody for two months, described the threats to the boy as a moment of madness and does not know what he was thinking and accepts he should not have done it.”
Judge Garrett Byrne said that a victim impact statement showed that the boy had been adversely affected by the threats. He pointed out that Burns has now breached the SHPO six times. He made a new one for the next ten years and ordered him to sign on the Sex Offenders Register for ten years.
The court heard that his previous convictions include inciting a child to engage in sexual activity in 2013 and breaching the terms of his sex offenders registration.
When he appeared in 2019 for breaching his SHPO the court then heard that Burns, then living in Newton-le-Willows, was said to have an entrenched unhealthy interest in young girls.
He had given money and crisps to two vulnerable young girls and chillingly ran after them in a Merseyside park. After his arrest a “child like” colour drawing was found hidden in his bedroom.
It was addressed to the two girls, both aged ten, saying what he wanted to do them sexually and asking them to send him photographs of themselves.
