The Text Message Typo That Landed a Man In Jail

Barence writes "A British man was jailed for 18 months for accidentally sending an explicit text message to his entire address book. 24-year-old swimming coach Craig Evans intended to send a text message to his girlfriend asking her for sex. Instead, the message was accidentally sent to his entire BlackBerry address book, including two girls, aged 13 and 14, from his swimming class. He was subsequently arrested and charged with 'causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity,' and – incredibly – jailed for 18 months at Birmingham Crown Court in July. Yesterday, an appeal's court freed Evans, although he wasn't cleared — the sentence was merely reduced to a nine-month suspended jail term."

Comments

Wait, what?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Why did he have the phone numbers of 13 and 14 year old students on his mobile phone?

Re:Wait, what?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Phone number of parents is great, as they are responsible for their child (as they are still children by law). They will take the children to meets, pick them up etc. There is no need to have the child's phone number at all.

I am not saying, or even insinuating, that he did anything inappropriate, but working in education myself I can tell you that you don't hold the child's contact details. You have the contact details of the parent or carer. At best, it's a serious breach of protocol.

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly what a pedophile would say.

Re:I just tried to do this on my Blackberrry

[slashmydots]

Well, it's a 2 part process. I don't know part 2 but I do know part 1 is using a blackberry instead of a real phone.

Re:FTA...

[h4rr4r]

Was he also joking when he said he did not worry about the poor or when he said 47% of Americans feel entitled to things like food?

I don't even think he is programmed for humor, so what are the odds he was joking?

He says this bullshit, while paying a lower tax rate then me by doing shifty shit like claiming his wife's dancing horse is a business not a hobby.

Daily Mail fail

[SmallFurryCreature]

First of all, anything the Daily Mail writes is a lie, even the date on the front page.

Second, he did send a sexual text to underaged children. That it was by accident makes it alright? As lots have already commented, it is hard to send a text to everyone by accident because this is not the normal function. If I kill you by accident, that is alright then?

Third, he had his sentence reduced, a suspended sentence entire goal is to say "don't do it again or we will get you". He now has to prove for 6 months that he is not going to do something incredibly stupid again.

Really, accidently sending a sexually tinted message to everyone by mistake, what an idiot. MESSAGE ENDS

So how about it, do you want to come over for a night of passionatie steaming hot sex?

Re:Something is fishy

[Geeky]

The guy sent the same message to his family members:

Playing devil's advocate, but that would make for a good excuse - "ah, see, I sent it to my mum as well, must have been as mistake"

I would like to think there was enough doubt about his story to get the conviction in the first place. On the other hand I would like to think a lot of things, so, meh.