A 25-year-old Nigerian student in the United Kingdom, Anderson Ishiekwene has been sentenced to three years in prison and faces automatic deportation after attempting to meet who he believed was a 14-year-old girl for sex following online sexual grooming.

According to the BBC on Monday, Ishiekwene was arrested in Washington, England, after arranging to meet the supposed teenager, who was in fact a decoy operated by an online paedophile hunter group.

The report stated that Ishiekwene, who arrived in the UK from Nigeria on a student visa in August 2025 and settled in Sunderland, began communicating with the profile on Facebook on January 2 before moving the conversation to WhatsApp.

Prosecutors told Newcastle Crown Court that over the course of eight days, Ishiekwene exchanged more than 300 pages of messages with the decoy, despite repeatedly being informed that the person he believed he was communicating with was 14 years old.

During the conversations, he allegedly asked questions about the girl’s school, school uniform and body, requested explicit photographs and sent an image of his naked groin. He also repeatedly asked the “girl” to delete his messages.

When the decoy refused to send him photographs, Ishiekwene allegedly complained that it was “unfair” and claimed sharing such images was a “normal thing for people to do in a relationship.”

The court heard that the pair agreed to meet at the Galleries shopping centre in Washington on January 10. Ishiekwene allegedly told the “girl” he wanted to kiss and sexually touch her “like lovers”.

However, when he arrived at the agreed location, he was confronted by members of the paedophile hunter group before police officers arrested him.

Although Ishiekwene denied travelling to meet the child for sexual purposes, a jury found him guilty after a three-day trial of attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming. He had earlier admitted attempting to engage in sexual communications with a child.

Sentencing him, Judge Robert Spragg said the sexual activity Ishiekwene intended on January 10 was a “precursor” to full sexual intercourse on a later occasion.

The judge also noted that the probation service believed there was “little doubt” Ishiekwene was attracted to children.

In addition to the three-year prison sentence, the court ordered Ishiekwene to sign the sex offenders register and comply indefinitely with a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

The judge further stated that Ishiekwene would most likely face automatic deportation from the UK upon completing his prison sentence, according to the BBC. (The PUNCH)

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