Former Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough teacher jailed for nearly three years for string of online sex offences

David Wesling, 48, a former cellist/chorister at the prestigious Ripon Cathedral Choir, contacted what he thought was a 13-year-old girl on Snapchat after “crawling around” the internet looking for vulnerable targets, York Crown Court heard.

But unbeknown to the perverted former musical virtuoso, the teenage ‘girl’ was in fact a police decoy posing as a child, said prosecutor Daniel Ingham.

Wesling, from Littlethorpe, was soon trapped by the wiles of the decoy and his own perversions and is now serving almost three years in jail - his second prison sentence in four years for almost identical offences.

Mr Ingham said that Wesling contacted the ‘girl’ on social media and, not realising she was an adult decoy, told her his true age.

The ‘girl’ told him she was 13 years’ old, whereupon Wesling asked her if she wanted to “watch him playing with his (private parts)”.

In a subsequent video chat, he told her he was naked and asked if she “wanted to watch”, said Mr Ingham.

“This (video call) was recorded and he was (performing a sexual act) into the camera,” added the barrister.

There was a second video chat with the ‘girl’ in which Wesling again filmed himself performing the lewd act.

Wesling, of Littlethorpe Lane, was ultimately arrested and charged with attempted sexual communication with a child, attempting to breach a sexual-harm prevention order and attempting to arrange sexual activity in the presence of a minor, namely by getting her to watch a sexual act.

He appeared for sentence at the Crown Court today (7 June) after pleading guilty to the offences.

Mr Ingham said that Wesling had been banned from having any advertent communication with children under 18 years of age after he received a 12-month jail sentence in 2019 for five similar offences.

On that occasion, he was also slapped with a five-year sexual-harm prevention order under which he was prohibited from contacting children.

The 2019 jail sentence was imposed after Wesling, who denied those offences, was found guilty of online sex chats with a 12-year-old ‘girl’ after being snared by paedophile hunters.

Wesling, who was living in Ripon at the time, found what he thought was the profile of an under-age girl on a website called ‘Chat Hour’ and started messaging her.

In fact, the ‘girl’ was a member of Keeping Kids Safe (KKS), a vigilante group set up to root out online predators.

After messaging the ‘girl’ on ‘Chat Hour’, Wesling - a then peripatetic and private music tutor from Ripon who had taught at several leading schools including Ripon Cathedral Church of England Primary School, Willow Tree Primary in Harrogate and a school in Knaresborough - contacted her on Whatsapp, bombarding her with requests for intimate photos and asking her if she wanted to see him naked.

Wesling, a former Royal Northern College of Music student who used to perform in Ripon’s renowned St Cecilia Orchestra, stripped off his clothes and performed naked sex acts on himself during video calls to the ‘girl’.

He also urged her to perform a sex act on herself “while you watch me” and said he wanted to be her “slave”.

He made repeated attempts to see a “full-body picture” of the ‘girl’ throughout the debauched chats.

A jury at the trial of the disgraced musician heard that the ‘girl’ was actually a grandmother from South Wales who pretended to be a child.

Wesling, a father-of-two who was married at the time, exposed himself on the video calls and told the ‘girl’ not to tell anyone about their online chats.

Following his arrest for those offences, Wesling pleaded his innocence, claiming he was merely carrying out “classic role-play” and “older-man fantasy” with what he thought was an adult.

He said this was a “form of escapism” and a “turn-on”.

The prosecution claimed at the trial that Wesling - whose cello career came to an abrupt end in 2013 after he suffered a serious hand injury in a car accident - had been on several websites in 2014 looking for “pre-teen” material.

Wesling, former owner of the Half Moon Inn in Sharow, told police he was a “well-known teacher and a law-abiding citizen”.

He was released from jail in 2020, halfway through that sentence, but was still subject to curbs on his contact with youngsters.

Defence barrister Harry Crowson said that after being released from prison, Wesling’s “life and personal circumstances declined, his finances declined and he was off work sick”.

This led to a breakdown in his marriage and “increased alcohol consumption” which in turn led to the new offences which he described as “extraordinarily impulsive for immediate gratification”.

Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, told Wesling: “You are 48 and you are back before the court for trawling the internet looking for young girls to groom and abuse, so that they (would) be prepared to watch you perform your sexual acts at home.”

He described Wesling’s behaviour as “non-contact internet crawling” which put children in danger of “considerable harm”.

Wesling was jailed for 32 months and told he must serve half of that behind bars before being released on prison licence.

He was made subject to a new, 10-year sexual-harm prevention order to curb his online contact with children and will remain on the sex-offenders’ register.