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A man who arranged to meet what he believed was a teenage boy in breach of an order has appeared in court. Michael Dyos, 58, was given a ten-year sexual harm prevention order in 2021 due to making indecent images of children, forbidding him from owning a communications device or communicating with a person under the age of 16 without consent from parents. Judge Gold KC told the court at Hove Trial Centre that in 2019, police received a report of the alleged grooming of a 14-year-old boy by Dyos, although the accusations were dropped as the boy became unwilling to cooperate.
Dyos’s devices were seized and over 1,000 indecent images of children were found as part of the investigation, landing him with the prevention order and an eight-month suspended sentence. However, in July of this year, Dyos, of College Road in Horsham, communicated with an undercover police officer acting as a 13-year-old boy on a gay adult dating website, before continuing conversations on Kik, an instant messaging platform. Dyos spoke with the officer, believing him to be a teenager called Rory, about meeting up and engaging in sexual activity.
READ MORE: Death of man, 26, at immigration detention centre may be unnatural In messages read out to the court, Dyos told Rory that he wouldn’t “pressure him into anything” and that they could “start with kissing and cuddling, see what you like”. Rory told Dyos that he had engaged in oral sex with an older man previously. Dyos later said that they could do what he did before if he wanted to.
The court also heard that Dyos told Rory that he “liked that he’s young”. On the dating profile, Dyos listed his preferences as “smooth young twinkie guys”, the court heard. During a cross examination, prosecutor Sarah Thorne asked Dyos if his interest was in young teenage boys, to which he responded he was interested in teenage boys but not young ones.
Dyos told the court that although he had his suspicions about whether Rory was actually a teenage boy or a police officer, he “wanted him to be real”. “It was more a fantasy than anything else,” Dyos added, “the messages were a fantasy”. READ MORE: Kinder egg cocaine dealer smuggled drugs in plastic containers in the back of a taxi Dyos also spoke of his emotional turmoil at the time of the offences due to the death of his closest friend of 25 years in May, meaning he “could not think straight” and was “overwhelmed by grief”.
He also said he “was looking for company” due to loneliness and reported that he was suffering from prostate cancer and Parkinson's disease. Dyos was charged with arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sexual offence, attempting to breach a sexual harm prevention order and the breach of a sexual harm prevention order. He pleaded guilty to the offences in August of this year, although contested the basis that he arranged to meet with the boy with the intention of penetrative sexual activity.
Judge Gold KC overturned this at Hove Trial Centre on Thursday and ruled that Dyos had arranged to meet up with the boy for penetrative sexual activity. Judge Gold told the court that Dyos is “a man who, it appears to be in no dispute, has a sexual interest in children”, as well as being a “vulnerable individual”. He said that his physical and mental health issues will be taken into account as part of mitigation.
He is due to be sentenced on January 9..
