Man who groomed and sexually assaulted boy jailed

A man who groomed and sexually assaulted a boy has been jailed for more than eight years.

Jacques Du Plessis, 51, of Newport, Shropshire, started talking to the survivor on Snapchat and arranged to pick him up in Newcastle-under-Lyme, last year. He then sexually assaulted the survivor a number of times over the next few days in different locations, recording one of the incidents on his phone.

Du Plessis was reported to us in May. Detectives worked extremely hard to support the survivor as much as possible while building strong evidence against Du Plessis for his heinous crimes.

This led to a number of charges being brought against him, including three counts of engaging in sexual activity with a boy and one count of meeting a boy following grooming, making indecent/pseudo photographs of a child and distributing an indecent/pseudo photograph of a child.

Through our evidence and the bravery of the survivor, Du Plessis was sentenced to eight-years-and-three-months in prison at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court on 17 April. He pleaded guilty to all of the charges.

PC Bev Rainer, from our child protection team, said: “Officers and staff worked tirelessly to build all of the evidence needed to secure this result against another dangerous child sex offender in Staffordshire.

“I’d like to recognise the survivor for their immeasurable bravery in this case and I hope it serves as an example to other survivors out there that we are here to act against the people responsible for these crimes.”

If you’re a survivor and you feel ready to talk to us, call us on 101 or use Live Chat on our website. No matter how recent or long ago the offences were, we want you to know we are here to support you.