Online child predator caught by paedo hunters back in court over ‘laptop breach’

Coleraine creep Harold Samuel Burke is accused of breaching his SOPO by having a laptop “without the prior approval of his designated risk manager” in September 2021.

None of the facts were opened on Friday in the court sitting in Ballymena and the case was adjourned until later this month.

It’s almost three years since Burke, from Quilly Road in Coleraine, was handed a lifelong SOPO and three-year probation order.

The 63-year-old made legal history by being the first pervert snared by a paedophile hunter gang to have his case sent to the crown court.

Although he walked free from court that day, the judge noted it was mainly because he had already served time in jail.

Burke had admitted three counts of attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity over the summer of 2018.

The court was told how the conversations with the decoys, who were posing as 13- and 14-year-old girls, were of a highly sexual nature.

Burke used the name Hal, with his own photograph attached to his profile, to chat with those he thought were underage girls called Zoe, Fiona and Angel.

The conversations quickly became extremely sexualised and explicit, with Burke requesting them to do certain things.

He later asks Zoe to meet for sex and tells her “to try and recruit others... to create a network”.

Burke’s sick activities were exposed by paedophile hunters from Decoy Central who then handed over transcripts of their chats with the pervert to the PSNI.

One of the women who posed as girl Fiona said after the case: “He was just vile — he is one sick man and he is a real danger to children.”