A migrant has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison after being apprehended by a group targeting child predators while attempting to meet a 14-year-old girl.
Prakash Chumroo, a 37-year-old from Mauritius, engaged with the supposed teenager via Facebook, unaware he was actually interacting with a decoy profile created by a group known as ‘The Fleetwood Enforcers.’
Following nearly two weeks of communication, Chumroo arranged to meet the girl at Victoria Coach Station in central London on September 27 of last year, with intentions of taking her to a hotel for sexual activities.
The court at the Old Bailey was informed that Chumroo had discussed engaging in sexual acts with the girl, assuring her it would involve ‘safe sex’ by using a condom.
However, upon his arrival at the coach station, he was promptly detained by law enforcement officials.
During his arrest, officers searched his backpack, uncovering a bottle of whisky, an assortment of snacks, and a fully stocked wash bag.
Chumroo, of Bowes Road, Enfield, north London, was given a three and a half year prison sentence, 40 per cent of which will be served in custody, and he will be subject to notification requirements indefinitely.
He admitted one count of arranging or facilitating the commission of sexual activity with a child and one count of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child.
Mauritian Prakash Chumroo, 37, made contact with the young girl on Facebook and sent explicit messages to her, not knowing that he was in fact communicating with a fake account set up by pedophile hunting group ‘The Fleetwood Enforcers’
Meyrick Williams, prosecuting, said: ‘The facts of the case are that on 14 September 2025 the defendant sent a friend request [to the decoy account].
‘The request was accepted and the defendant began to converse with her.
‘She told him that she was 14 years old and he conversed with her on that basis. In fact, she was a decoy.
‘The defendant became increasingly sexually explicit. He masturbated to her and he asked her to masturbate.’
‘He discussed having sex with her and said that it would be safe sex as he would use a condom.
‘He said that she must not play up or act clever with him.’
In his defence, Nutan Fatania said that his greatest mitigation was ‘his previous good character’.
‘He is horrified to be facing the court for these matters,’ she said.
‘He is Mauritian born. He arrived in the UK in 2010. His family are here and they still reside here. He initially trained to be an accountant.’
Sentencing Chumroo Judge Alexander Milne KC desrcibed his crimes as ‘exploitation of the most grotesque kind’.
The judge said: ‘Having made contact online with someone you believed to be and was told was 14 year old, you made arrangements to meet with her in central London with a view, quite clearly, to having penetrative sex with her in a hotel.
‘That was clearly his intention. That was clearly his design. I am satisfied that there was a degree of planning.
‘He was well aware that this was someone significantly younger, him being thirty-seven at the time.
‘It is clear from the messages that what he had in mind was penetrative sex on the first meeting with this person.
‘Nobody was assaulted, nobody was physically harmed by this.
‘But it is repellant to most right-thinking people that a man of thirty-seven would arrange to meet with a school girl of such a young age.
‘It is exploitation of the most grotesque kind.’
‘Only an immediate custodial sentence should follow.’
