Overview
- Derek Johnson, 59, was sentenced at Gloucester Crown Court to a 15-year term with a 10-year minimum, followed by five years on licence, plus an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order and restraining orders.
- Investigators said he groomed girls aged 13 to 16 online between 2020 and 2023 before abusing them in Gloucestershire, Cornwall and West Yorkshire.
- Police seized multiple devices that contained extensive child sexual abuse material, including 42 Category A videos of one victim, and a calendar app logging offences.
- He was arrested in February 2025 in Stevenage by Hertfordshire officers, breached bail, fled to the Republic of Ireland, and was arrested in May before extradition to the UK in June.
- Victim statements described severe, lasting trauma, and Judge Rupert Lowe condemned the offences as among the worst of their kind.