Nurse Jailed Over 'Grooming'

An NHS nurse who was convicted of sexual grooming has been jailed for nine years.

Dale Bolinger, 58, bought an axe from a DIY store in Broadstairs, Kent, the day before he tried to meet the 14-year-old, whom he groomed online.

He chatted with the teenager, a Mexican girl called "Eva'' said to be living in Germany, on a website called the Dark Fetish Network (DFN).

After a four-day trial at Canterbury Crown Court in July, Bolinger was found guilty of attempting to meet a girl under the age of 16 following sexual grooming.

Before the trial, Bolinger admitted other charges, including administering a poison or noxious substance after he put a cloth soaked in dry cleaning fluid over his friend Urlene King's mouth in July 2010.

He also pleaded guilty to making indecent pseudo photographs of children, and seven counts of publishing an obscene article.

As he was jailed today for the 11 offences, a judge said his behaviour was "abhorrent, shocking and dangerous''.

American national Bolinger was made the subject of a sexual offences prevention order (Sopo) to stop him using the internet without permission by judge Adele Williams, who said the case presented "a unique set of facts''.

Psychiatrists ruled that Bolinger, whose family have turned their back on him, was not suffering from any form of mental illness.