EXCLUSIVE: Former Crown prosecutor jailed after plot to rape girl aged seven
DISGRACED: Clive Jones, a former District Crown Prosecutor for Yorkshire and Humberside, who has now been exposed as a paedophile. Picture by Humberside Police
By Simon Bristow, Co-Editor
A retired District Crown Prosecutor went to rape a seven-year-old girl with condoms, Viagra and a rope in the boot of his car.
Clive Jones, 74, a former District Crown Prosecutor for Yorkshire and Humberside at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), arranged to commit a series of sex offences against the child after responding to an advert on the website FetLife, Durham Crown Court heard.
He was instead snared in a police sting – the advert had been placed by an undercover officer and the child did not exist. Jones was arrested and the “accoutrements” were recovered from his car.
Jones, of Newsham Hill Lane, Bempton, East Yorkshire, denied any wrongdoing but was convicted of seven counts of arranging the commission of a child sex offence after a six-day trial at the same court in December.
He was yesterday jailed for a total of 12 years and must register as a sex offender for life. He was also made subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 20 years.
The Probation Service said Jones posed a “significant risk of serious harm” to the public by the commission of further specified offences.
The court heard Jones responded to the advert and contacted the undercover officer by WhatsApp messages and phone calls, which were recorded, and that the officer “pretended she had a seven-year-old child at home”.
“You described in utterly repellent details the sex offences you wished to commit on the child,” Judge James Adkin, Honorary Judicial Recorder of Durham, told him.
“You drove to meet. It was of course a sting. In your car you carried a number of accoutrements.”
The offences took place between February 1 and February 20 last year.
Jones had no previous convictions and was of previous good character, the court heard.
He was convicted of all seven charges he faced at trial, Tom Storey, prosecuting, said.
They included arranging to commit:
Two counts of rape of a child under 13.
Three sexual assaults of a child under 13.
Causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity.
Engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child.
Durham Crown Court
Helen Chapman, mitigating, said Jones was in “poor physical health” and was “perhaps at the time of life when many ailments have come all at once”.
Ms Chapman said Jones “essentially lives in daily pain” and would find managing his conditions in prison “difficult”.
She told the court Jones, who appeared in court via a video link, “receives the support of his wife who is present today”.
Sentencing Jones, the judge said the evidence against him was “abundant and compelling”. He described the case as “intensely concerning” and said: “This was, in essence, organised child abuse.”
At the conclusion of the trial in December, Humberside Police Detective Constable Rachel Hall, the officer in the case, said: “This was a concerning case where a fully grown man was taking a sickening sexual interest in a child, arranging to meet the child and expressing perverted sexual desires.
“I hope this sends a very clear warning to anyone considering committing similar offences. We will carry out a full and thorough investigation and will do everything in our power to put you before the courts.”
Jones worked for the CPS for more than 20 years and was based in Hull.
The Hull Story understands he had special responsibility for RASSO (Rape and Serious Sexual Offences) cases and may have trained other lawyers in the field. He was also involved in charging decisions, including on offences of rape, child abuse and murder.
The CPS was asked to provide a comment after the hearing and whether it would be reviewing any cases Jones had been involved with.
A spokesperson for the CPS said: “Clive Jones was convicted of seven counts of arranging to commit a child sex offence contrary to Section 14 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
“The offending took place between 1 February 2023 and 20 February 2023. He left the CPS in 2018.
“We will not be reviewing any previous cases he was involved with during his time at the CPS.”