Father jailed for online seduction

A BRITISH man who flew to America to meet a 15-year-old girl he had wooed using the Internet was yesterday jailed by a United States judge. Police arrested Ian Waddup, 37, of Newcastle as he was taking the girl to a hotel in Ohio.

Waddup, a father of four who has previous convictions in Britain for sex offences against children, spent thousands of pounds conducting a "chat-room" romance with the girl.

He was trapped by detectives acting on a tip-off from British police who had been warned about his intentions by Waddup's parents shortly after he flew to America. Yesterday Sylvia Hendon, an Ohio state judge, jailed Waddup for 180 days, with 90 days suspended. Waddup, who will serve his sentence in Hamilton County Justice Centre, Ohio also faces charges over visa offences.

Judge Hendon said: "I was searching for some way to keep him off the Internet but I don't know how that could be mechanically done. I was very disturbed that I had no way of keeping someone as predatory as him out of peoples' homes."