0
7
A paedophile claimed he tried to meet a '14-year-old boy' for sex when he was grieving for his Chelsea football star stepdad.
Lee Stride, whose stepfather was Blues defender David Stride, has been spared jail after he arranged to meet who he thought was a teenage boy he had been chatting to on Grindr.
When he arrived to meet the youngster he was confronted by paedophile hunters from the group TRAP.
Southampton Crown Court heard supermarket worker Stride had struck up a conversation on Grindr.
Prosecutor James Kellam said that after the 'boy' said he was 14, Stride continued to talk to him and sent intimate pictures of himself.
Mr Kellam said: "You will be familiar with cases where self-appointed guardians of society - as they see it - set up profiles on dating websites.