Brendan Conway TV talent show dancer jailed for grooming boys

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-31437379

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A chef and youth football coach who appeared on a TV talent show has been jailed for eight years for using social networking sites to groom boys.

Brendan Conway, 28, from Derby, admitted 15 offences against children as young as 12 dating back to 2012.

In one case he met a boy aged 13 in Gloucestershire, where they engaged in a sexual activity.

The victim's family said the boy's life had been "turned upside down" by what Conway did to him.

Conway, of Border Crescent, Alvaston, admitted causing or inciting children to engage in sexual activity, possession of indecent images, online grooming of children and sexual activity with a child.

The street dancer, who appeared on Sky's Got To Dance and as an extra in Streetdance 3D, used a variety of social networking sites to find youngsters, before offering them cash and other gifts to meet him.

On one occasion, while pretending to be a 17-year-old, he was successful.

He convinced a 13-year-old boy to meet him in Gloucestershire and carry out a sex act on him.

He was arrested after a friend of the victim told police what happened.

'Fully aware'

Sentencing Conway at Derby Crown Court, Judge Nirmal Shant said: "Your case demonstrates the dangers to young children of using the internet. You used it to enter their homes so you could have access you wouldn't ordinarily have had."

The mother of the one victim Conway met said he had "totally turned their lives upside down".

"My son, although he was fully aware of the dangers online, thought it wouldn't happen to him," she said.

"He trusted the wrong person, believing the information he was told. The long-term effects on my son are still not known at the moment."

At a previous hearing, Conway denied five other sex offences, which were ordered to lie on file.

Conway will serve at least five years and was put on the sex offenders register for life.