The dad-of-three booked hotel stays and arranged to meet for coffee while seeking to groom two 15-year-old girls
A dad-of-three falsely claimed to be a reverend as he sought to groom two schoolgirls. Kevin Marshall, who posted pictures of himself wearing a priest’s collar and a Moncler coat on Facebook, booked hotel stays and arranged to meet up for coffee with the teenagers after befriending them via social media.
But, unbeknown to him, he was actually being ensnared in a paedophile hunter sting. He was left in tears in court today, as well as feeling “disgusted and embarrassed”, after his “nasty” secret was exposed.
Liverpool Crown Court heard on Thursday that Marshall communicated with two decoy profiles set up by paedophile hunter group Saving Children’s Futures UK via Facebook and WhatsApp. The 45-year-old, of Hursley Road in Fazakerley, “made repeated attempts to meet up with” one of the supposed 15-year-olds, as well as “making specific arrangements to meet up with” the other.
Christopher Taylor, prosecuting, described how he was arrested after being confronted at his home by members of the group shortly after 9.30pm on April 28 this year. Marshall went on to claim to police officers “honestly, I’ve done nothing wrong” and “stated that matters were both ‘nasty and dangerous'”.
It came after he contacted one of the so-called teenagers using a Facebook page, which featured a picture of him wearing a clerical collar, and “asked the decoy when she was 16”. He then went on to tell the girl that she was “hot” and sent photographs of motorcycles, cars and an X-ray of his shoulder after he had apparently been involved in a biking accident.
Marshall thereafter proposed staying with her in a hotel and offered to travel to Glasgow in order to collect her, as well as sending a screenshot detailing train times to Liverpool. He then went on to book a room in the Scottish city for the night of April 25 2025, as well as asking her “what type of drunk she was” and saying that he would “make her comfortable on her first experience with a man”.
Having contacted the second girl in January of this year, Marshall told her that “he had been a reverend but quit when his mother died”. He went on to suggest “meeting up for coffee, a walk or a drive as friends, for a chat” and called her “stunning and beautiful” while admitting that he “had naughty thoughts”.
The pervert thereafter offered to “pick her up in his Volvo” and “put a smile on her face”. Marshall also “made comment on the family court”, saying that they were “pricks who think they know better”, and arranged to meet the girl for coffee in the Crosby area.
His criminal record shows a total of 20 previous convictions for 51 offences, including receiving a five-year sentence for blackmail in 2015. Matthew O’Neill, defending, told the court: “He puts it down to the loss of his mother in January this year, which resulted in him misusing cocaine to the extent where he found himself communicating with what he believed to be 15-year-old girls online.
“He is disgusted in his behaviour and embarrassed, given the nature of his offending and the fact that he has three young children. Mr Marshall has spent the best part of two months in custody. He tells me that he is using his time constructively and reflecting on his actions to ensure that, when he is released from custody, he does not appear before the courts again.”
Marshall pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted sexual communications with a child and two charges of arranging or facilitating a child sex offence. Appearing in the dock wearing a grey t-shirt and sporting short dark hair, he was seen wiping tears away with a tissue at times during the hearing before being jailed for three years.
Sentencing, Judge Simon Medland KC said: “There were two supposed children involved under pseudonyms. They were both girls were were 15, or so you thought, yet you were prepared to go to considerable lengths to arrange sexual encounters in the most graphic ways.
“Under an imaginative disguise, you sought to groom them in a prolonged way. Children are entitled to their childhood. They are not there to be sexualised or seen as sexual objects by dirty minded, paedophile inclined adults. Yet that is what you were doing.”
Marshall was also handed a lifelong sexual harm prevention order. He will be required to sign the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.