An NHS radiographer who groomed a 12-year-old girl into meeting him outside a school was snared by a group of paedophile hunters posing as children online.
Father-of-three Vinod Ramachandran, 41, arrived with two chocolate bars for his victim, who he had shared ‘sexualised messages’ with and begged ‘not to inform the police’.
As part of his campaign to ‘soften’ her up, he sent photos and videos which ‘showed his face and that he was wearing his NHS uniform’.
He arranged to meet the child outside Open Academy, a secondary school in Norwich, but was instead met by several men from the vigilante anti-paedophile group who held him until police arrived.
Ramachandran was jailed for two years yesterday after admitting attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, attempting to cause or incite a female under 13 to engage in sexual activity, arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sexual offence, and admitting to being an adult attempting to meet a girl under 16 following grooming.
Judge Katharine Moore said the defendant was ‘committed’ to the offending as a result of his ‘sexual interest in young girls’.
At ‘no point’ did he desist from what he was doing and he turned up at their meeting armed ‘with chocolate for her’ with the full intention to ‘follow through on what had been arranged’, she added.
The judge accepted Ramachandran worked ‘long hours in the NHS’ in Norwich and Ipswich and had expressed remorse but said she remained sceptical about the prospect of rehabilitation given his sexual interest in children.
Ramachandran first started communicating with what he thought was a pre-teen schoolgirl on Facebook, prosecutor Richard Paterson told Norwich Crown Court.
He then ‘moved onto the sexualised messages’ in private chats on WhatsApp.
In the messages, Ramachandran talked about kissing the girl and asked for her to send photos, particularly involving her chest.
Eventually, he said he needed to meet her and would be ‘heartbroken’ if she didn’t agree. He described wanting to kiss and cuddle her and ‘admire her beauty’, as well as talking about her touching him.
Unaware he was talking with an adult decoy, he spoke of his fears, saying he would be ‘screwed if someone finds out’ and would ‘end up in jail’.
When he was arrested outside the school, he told officers he was only planning to eat at a KFC restaurant with the girl before going home and had ‘never done anything like this before’.
Michael Clare, defending, said his client had no previous convictions and had been supporting his wife and children, as well as his wife’s family in India after she became ill.
He ‘became quite lonely’ while shuttling between jobs as a diagnostic radiographer in Norwich and Ipswich, where he lives, and ‘doesn’t have any friends’, which is why he began communicating with people online.
Mr Clare added Ramachandran was ‘ashamed and desperately sorry for what he had done’, adding he had caused ‘untold damage’ to his family life and ‘wrecked his career’.
The defendant, who is likely to be struck off when a Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service fitness to practise panel hears his case, was made the subject of a ten-year sexual harm prevention order and placed on the sex offenders register for the same period of time.