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, 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 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.
The court heard that the pair agreed to meet at a shopping centre in Washington. However, when Ishiekwene 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 intended sexual activity 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. He is expected to face automatic deportation from the UK upon completing his sentence.
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