Former Ilkley town councillor Heathcliffe Bowen jailed for series of sex offences involving young teenage boys

Heathcliffe Bowen, 50, was found guilty today of a series of offences between 2013 and 2015 including grooming young boys on the internet with a view to meeting them for sex.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC, said Bowen had a “deep and entrenched interest in underage children”.

Prosecutor Christopher Rose had told a jury at Bradford Crown Court that Bowen’s offending had arisen from online conversations he had engaged in using Skype.

He said some of the allegations involved attempting to engage “young teenage men” in sexual activity, including “meeting men for sex”.

Police later identified one of the people Bowen had communicated with as a 15 year-old boy.

Mr Rose said: “The conversations make it obvious that they were regularly meeting up for sex, for which sometimes the defendant paid.”

One of the exchanges involved Bowen inviting someone who told him he was a boy in Year 8 at school to have unprotected sex if he ever visited Leeds, with another discussion including an offer to take the virginity of a user who said he was a 12-year-old boy.

In one conversation using a webcam, Bowen performed a sex act on himself on camera while a 15-year-old boy watched.

The defendant, of Woodlands Rise, Ilkley, was also convicted of distributing and possessing indecent images of children.

He had told the jury that his online interactions were “completely devoid of reality”, claiming he was just chatting to other adults in a “fantastical roleplay environment”, acting a role in a “bizarre internet drama”.

Bowen, who worked as an administrator for Bradford Council in social services and safeguarding from 1995 to 2014, was convicted of three charges of attempting to cause or incite a child to engage in sexual activity, one of arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sexual offence, one of attempting to meet a child for sexual activity, one of attempting to cause a child to look at an image of sexual activity, and four charges of distributing indecent images of children.

He had already admitted three charges of possessing indecent images of children, and was cleared of one charge of attempting to cause or incite a child to engage in sexual activity.

David McGonigal, defending, said Bowen had been diagnosed with an “anxiety and depressive disorder” at the height of the chats in 2014, triggered by disciplinary proceedings linked to his job.

He said Bowen had “suppressed his sexuality for most of his life”, only recently telling his 93 year-old mother, whom he lived with and was the carer for, that he was gay.

Mr McGonigal said Bowen had served the Ilkley community for 20 years, adding: “He has lost everything as a result of these convictions. It is difficult for him to admit what he has done.”

Judge Durham Hall said Bowen was a “predatory paedophile”, who “gave every appearance of being a pillar of society”.

He said: “It is depraved paedophilic activity over a period of years. I suspect until now you did not see the seriousness of it.

“Your plea was that this was all stress-related fantasy. The opposite could not have been more true. You were working very hard to engage in penetrative sexual activity with people under 16.”

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Referring to Bowen’s relationship with the 15 year-old boy, Judge Durham Hall said: “This was a real boy, groomed by you, met by you, for the purpose of, clearly, wide-ranging sexual encounters.”

Imposing an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order and ordering Bowen to register as a sex offender, Judge Durham Hall told him: “You were and are addicted to this behaviour and cannot help yourself.

“You have never shown any shame of remorse for these matters. The gravity in this case is the quantity of offending. “As you said in one chat you are nothing more than a perv and a paedophile, and a predatory one at that.”