A paedophile encouraged young girls to send him explicit photos before threatening to show the pictures to their parents or school if they refused his demands for more.
The Whitstable man targeted his many victims online, often posing as a teenage boy as he sent and requested indecent images.
Also in today's podcast, a Kent council is demanding answers over suspicions a London council is filling properties in its town with its homeless by offering “large incentives” to landlords.
Gravesham council claims the practice is putting “considerable pressure” on its housing services.
A Kent woman has been telling the KentOnline Podcast about her experience with endometriosis - as a study's found it now takes an average of 9 years to diagnose.
The condition causes tissue similar to the lining of the womb to grow in other places, which can cause painful periods and infertility.
New plans have been revealed to build up to 200 homes a floodplain next to the M20.
The development, called The Nurseries, would be on a field along the A2070 Kennington Road
And in sport, hear from the Gillingham boss after their disappointing result against AFC Wimbledon in league 2.
Stephen Clemence says he's proud of the performance of his squad after they went down to ten men.
10 days before threatening to show their parents has been locked up. The Whitstable man targeted his victims between December 2020 and March 2021, Nicola has the details for the Kent Online podcast. A court heard how 26 year old James Clark groomed as many as 13 young girls by pretending to be a teenage boy online. He would send them indecent images of himself and ask for photos and videos in return. He would later threaten to share their pictures with family and even their schools if they didn't send more. Now how was he eventually caught? Well, he came to the attention of police in 2021 when he contacted an undercover officer who was posing as a 13 year old girl on the kick app. His home was raided and a phone, SIM card and hard drive was seized and analyzed. More than 180 images were found as well as 15 videos with children aged between one and 10 years old. And how did it play out in court? Well, during the trial, a court was told James is ADHD and autism sometimes throws his mind off track. He admitted to more than 20 charges relating to attempted sexual communication and distributing indecent photos of a child. He was said to be ashamed of his appalling offending and it was committed at a time when he felt isolated and was going through a very unusual and challenging period. While handing down the five and a half year prison sentence, the judge said many people in life experience difficult times and don't resort to sexual offending. Thanks, Nicola. Clark was also handed an indefinite sexual harm prevention order and sex offender notification requirement, Kent online news. The art bishops of Canterbury and York have warned the government's new definition of extremism risks more division. Community Secretary Michael Gove is due to make the announcement this week. Church leaders are worried it'll threaten freedom of speech, worship and protest. A man's gone on trial accused of murdering a 71 year old man in Medway. William Rowe, who had previously been convicted of child sex offenses, was found dead in mercury close in Ballstort last September. 28 year old Simon Brown from Snowden, close in Chatham, says he never meant to kill him. He denies murder and the trial continues. It's understood people who've been refused asylum in the UK will be offered thousands of pounds to move to Rwanda. A new voluntary scheme is reportedly being drawn up by the government, which is separate to their stalled plan to deport some asylum seekers to the African nation. A manager has been left with bruises and a swollen face after being punched by a shoplifter in Gillingham. Daniel Green confronted the man as he tried to steal tins of tuna from Iceland last week. Police say they're investigating. Kent online news. Follow Kent online on socials to see footage of a motorist who was caught making an illegal U-turn on the A249. The black vehicle can be seen making the manoeuvre on the London bound M2 slip road at Stockbury roundabout on Monday afternoon. Teachers at a private school in Canterbury are out on strike today after their jobs were threatened unless they agreed to change us to their pensions. It's the first of six walkouts planned after St Edmund's school, which charges as much as £43,000 a year, refused to negotiate the new contracts. Staff say it's an attack on their financial security and they'll be worse off come retirement. And investigations underway after pallets, guttering and a tarpaulin was dumped on a country lane in Maidstone. The fly-tipped waste was discovered at the end of Butgreen Lane in Linton. Council bosses say whoever's responsible could face a fine. The RSPCA says they've had more than 520 reports of animals being injured, trapped or killed by litter in Kent over the past four years. Figures for our county are the third highest across England and Wales. Foxers, hedgehogs and birds are among those getting hurt. Carry stones is from the charity. It is extremely saddening because obviously litter is avoidable. It is something that we can all do something about. So to know that wildlife is being impacted by it in this way is really quite upsetting really. There are things that we can do, though, as members of the public. So to stop entanglements, if you have elastic bands, if you have face masks, those kinds of things before you put them in the bin, do snip them so they become less of a problem. With tin cans, do crush them with jars, make sure there's a lid on with plastic bottles, try and get the air out and then put the lid on to make sure that those stay depressed. So there are things that we can do to try and mitigate the risk. But one of the biggest things is if we do go out into our communities, if we do go out into the countryside, is to make sure that whatever litter we have, do take it with us and dispose of it properly at home and try not to leave it in the countryside because the left litter is impacting our wildlife. It is something that we can control and everyone has the responsibility to do something about them. That's why it's so sad when we see animals impacted in this way. A big spring clean is starting on Friday. Keep Britain tidy behind that and you're very much backing what they're doing, aren't you? We are. We've been involved in Keep Britain's Great British Spring Clean for the last nine years and every year we get super excited about it. It's a brilliant opportunity for us to raise awareness around the impact of litter on wildlife, but also as well to get out into communities and undertake litter picks throughout England and Wales. So we have our volunteers volunteering to facilitate group picks. They're doing picks on their own as well. We have our branches and centers facilitating group picks. We even have our boat teams out so they're litter picking in the land down and on the water as well. And this is a great opportunity for us because it enables us to talk to the general public who are very inquisitive and they want to know what it is that we're doing. So it gives us the opportunity to talk about what we're doing, but also as well the reasons why we're doing it. If you could tell us how we can get involved if you want to go out and do some spring cleaning when the sun hopefully shines a little bit. Okay, so we would love it if you could get involved in the Great British Spring Clean this year. I'll say it's from the 15th to the 31st. All you'd need to do is go onto our website at RSPCA, Great British Spring Clean, and pledge to pick. You can pledge to pick England or Wales. You can do that as an individual as a group or if you want to get your school involved, you can do that as well. And just be the positive change and help get involved in your local community and raise awareness about this important issue. We're being urged to sign up to keep Britain Tidy's Spring Clean event, which starts on Friday. Head to Kent online to see a picture of a vending machine at a Kent station that's been smashed by Vandals. Pictures taken at Wistable show Glass across the platform and empty Chris packets on the ground. It's thought rocks from the train tracks were used to crack the protective screen. British transport police are investigating Kent online news. London Council is being accused of moving homeless residents into Kent by offering large incentives to landlords. Bosses in Gravesham say it's putting considerable pressure on the number of properties it has available for local people. They've written to Lewisham's mayor. The authority there says they always try to secure properties close to the borough but do sometimes have to look outside of London. A spokesperson says they've reached out to the leader of Gravesham Council to meet and discuss how to highlight their common challenges at a national level. Fox don't hide has the highest proportion of smokers than any other part of Kent, according to figures seen by Kent online. The latest statistics show just under 19% of the population who were over 18 in that area regularly light up. Tundbridge and mauling has the lowest proportion today marks 40 years since the first no smoking day to encourage people to quit. A new report has revealed a recruitment crisis in Medway Council's Children's Services. It's found there were 23 vacant full time roles within the department at the end of last year and efforts to deal with recruitment challenges had been unsuccessful. Officers say there's been a decrease in the number of social workers nationally with many people choosing to leave the profession. A disability campaigner has warned vulnerable people could be put at risk due to planned changes to care funding in Kent. KCC are considering changes to the charging policy for people receiving care which would see more income taken into account as part of their means testing. It could mean a rise in bills. Council say they're having to make tough decisions to make sure the services are sustainable. A business woman says she's been forced to give up her spot at the Rochester Christmas markets after a hike in pitch figures. Helen Pennman runs my cottage cosmetics from her home in Harriet Shem. She's criticized organisers for not supporting small traders. She used to pay £1,200 for a stall but that's gone up to 2,000 trading hours have also been extended. The council say the fee reflects rising operating costs. Kent Online News. A Kent woman has been telling the Kent Online podcast about her experiences with endometriosis as her studies found it now takes an average of nine years to diagnose. The condition causes tissue similar to the lining of the womb to grow in other places which can cause painful periods and infertility. Lauren's been chatting to Heather Moore from Ailes Fitt. I obviously, like many women, had symptoms years before I actually ever had a diagnosis. Throughout my teenage years I had really painful periods and you just kind of go on thinking that that kind of thing is normal. I spoke to my doctor several times about it and so forth and it was like and at the time I actually had kind of toilet issues during my period as well and again it was just kind of for that three, four days during that period. I would have some problems and be in a hell of a lot of pain and so forth. It wasn't until I think I was about 25 when a doctor finally said the word endometriosis to me. The way that he said it was not particularly bit very diplomatically and kind of the way that he basically said, "Oh, well, you know, having problems with your periods." There's not a lot we can really do about it. He said, "There is a condition called endometriosis but the only way that we can make definitive diagnosis on that is to cut you open." He said, "Oh, go away. Here's the name. I wrote it down on the buffer post it for me, wrote it down for me and said, "Oh, go away. Do some research and come back if you'd like us to let me know if you'd like us to cut you open." Which at 25 and obviously, not really not here having heard that word before and knowing anything about the condition or anything, it just scared me, obviously completely. You do the kind of typical normal thing, "Oh, no, it's fine. I've been coping this long for, you know, for that length of time kind of thing and didn't do anything about it." And it was only when I was 29 when I finally got diagnosed. Why do you feel it does take so long to diagnose endometriosis? I honestly think because I don't think there's enough good education in schools for what is normal, what isn't normal and kind of when you should and shouldn't kind of go to your doctor about things. I mean, I also think that a lot of the time, you know, women's pain is dismissed and we know that there's a kind of this thing called the gender pain gap where you know, women are giving sort of less pain killers or less effective pain killers and so forth. And we're just kind of told that painful periods are normal. But if it can be diagnosed quite easily now by a scan trans vaginal scan, why then is it still taking nearly nine years? Do you think for most women to be diagnosed? I think the one thing is these scans are still relatively new. There's so few synagogues who can actually or so few specialists that can still can spot it on an ultrasound. Or an MRI or anything like that. I mean, I've had a couple of MRIs before my surgeries and one of them I was told by the surgeon, "Oh, your ovaries are just stuck. There's nothing else anywhere else." And it just turned out that that particular person who looked at the scan wasn't properly trained to spot endometriosis. So you need specialist training, you need more people who are specially trained to be able to see endometriosis because it's not something that naturally shows up on scans. As many as 200 homes could be built on a floodplain next to the M20 in Ashford, developers want to put properties on a field off Kennington Road, not far from a fragrance factory and have made an initial approach to counsel. They say it would be called the nurseries and some of the site would be set aside as wetland. A youth advisor from Maidstone is calling for more action to make sure autistic children don't miss out on their education. New researchers found across the UK, 20,000 pupils with autism are persistently absent from secondary school. Megan Horan is an autistic youth advisor from Maidstone. She's been telling Lucy about her experience at school. I've been in Maidstream from the 70 year 8. So with my experience, I have been bullied quite a lot, which I really did in folks my anxiety or coming into school when I was in Maidstream. Again, the staff did really understand me because it was like 2013. That's when I got diagnosed as having autism. By then people don't really understand it. Then when I was coming up to year 11 at my sense school, because I just got changed from year 9 onwards to my special news school, I took seven GCs and that had really made my mental health very worse when I was in year 11. I took seven GCs, I was very drained, I was very tired, I was sleeping, I revised so much at a time and I felt I was a failure because I kept failing the questions in these arms, which really didn't help with my concentration in these arms. I was very tired, moving breaks. But then when I came into sixth form at the same school, I developed panic attacks and I had developed depression and I couldn't take any exams because I was in mental health crisis. However, I was very grateful about the school support. So I had a key worker who support me in my emotional state. I was in three-out sixth form, so this helped me my anxiety, someone to talk to, whether it was crying or shouting, writing it down. And I was very grateful because I found it hard and difficult to verbalise of how I was feeling, especially in anxiety, was controlling me to the point that I firmly couldn't say anything. And the staff there was at that school that I used to go to were very understanding, they listened to me, they supported me throughout the mental health I was experiencing. So they took out their own time, didn't break some lunch to make sure I was fine and I was very grateful and especially that at that time, I needed that support support. And then, yes, then with differentiates, I didn't have a lot of friends, they didn't really understand mental health. So I tend to isolate myself being a library and as the friends were like gossiping about me or gossiping and put dramas on me, which I didn't really want to be involved in. So yeah, it's not very good to be honest, not very easy, but I had the staff there. From your experience and also from the young people you work with now, how damaging is it for autistic teenagers and children to miss out on education? I think the biggest damage it can do, education, special mental health, is the key milestones, such as GUC. So if you, if one, if a young person like Missed Out of School, they miss out a lot of information that they can get from GUCs, especially these sounds coming up or MOCs, which can really lower their progress to achieve that certain grade that they need to go into six form or college or apprenticeship. And also well, when they are at home, due to any sort of mental health they're experiencing or struggling with, they can feel isolated and can be hard to maintain that socialization, the competence, the self-esteem, especially it's very hard for parents to try and juggle as well with work and making sure that they're at home looking after their own young person, especially they're having panic attacks about going to school or anxiety about coming to school. So it's kind of like, it's a big sort of, like a barrier sort of thing, they need to go to school, but because they're experiencing mental health and they're experiencing the anxiety and the panic attacks is kind of like half of getting them into school. So you kind of like in that sort of the middle of trying to get them out, but it's quite a bit difficult. Kent Online News. A film about a Kent paddle steamer that rescued soldiers from Dunkirk during World War II is being shown tonight to mark her centenary. The Medway Queen launched in 1924 and is currently based at Gillingham Pier, where volunteers have spent years restoring her. Next month, there'll be a Thanksgiving service at Rochester Castle. TV legend Paul O'Grady is reported to have left generous sums of money in his will to charity. He died last year at the age of 67 at his home near Ashford, £500,000. He said to have been left for better seed dogs and cats home. South Easton have announced a new timetable, which they say will improve journeys for passengers. Services will be spaced out to reduce the time people have to spend waiting on platforms. It'll also provide extra capacity where it's needed. Most changes come into force on the 2nd of June. It's been confirmed to all fast track buses in Dartford and Gravesend will be fully electric by April next year. Kent County Council have signed a 15 year deal with the company, which is bringing in a fleet of 28 clean energy vehicles. And a live music promoter who brought some of the world's most iconic acts to Kent has died at the age of 76. Vince Power was the man behind the Hop Farm Festival at Paddick Wood between 2008 and 2012. Among the stars he secured to perform was Prince for his one and only UK festival, as well as Morrissey, Bob Dylan and Van Morrison. Kent online sports. Football now and Jillingham have lost two nil to AFC Wimbledon in their latest league two match. Defender Connor Masterson was sent off after picking up two yellow cards within two minutes just before halftime. Head coach Stephen Clement says they did the best they could. I'm really proud of the boys in the second half, which I mean, I thought their character was immense actually to stay in the game and also create one or two things ourselves. I think they've scored from a long-range effort, which was a good save from the goalkeeper and they've obviously tapped in the rebound. First off I thought we started the game well and obviously the game swings in about five or six minute period. Cross comes into our box and we should do better. The challenge isn't good enough in the box and then obviously a few minutes later we're down to ten minutes. So, yeah, disappointing because I felt we were right in the game. I felt we were given them problems. But obviously it's not meant to be tonight. I think 1,200 Jills fans here this evening kept chances from starting to finish. But it's one you've got to wipe from memories, eight games to go and it's still a chance of a two-point shot of the top seven. Yeah, it was obviously a great turn out and thanks for this report brilliant again. Turned up in the numbers everywhere like I've said in recent weeks, so fantastic. So, we've got a big game at home now and I know that they'll turn up there as well and get right behind the boys. And yeah, we need to go and beat Grimsley on Saturday. It's finally from me. What was your final message to the players and just following the game with eight games to go? What was your final comments on them? I've told them I was really proud of them. I thought the way they kept going in the second half, I already know what team I'll pick on Saturday. From that performance I saw in the second half and obviously from moments we saw in the first as well. I think it's easy for players to go and chop the towel when they go down to 10 men and give up. The boys certainly didn't give up and that's when you learn even more about people and players and they all stood up to be counted. Sometimes you go down to 10 men for whatever reason and yeah, you don't often come out on the right side of it and that was us tonight but the boys didn't go under. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine by me so well done to them. The Jills have dropped out of the playoff places and are now 10th in the table. That's all from us today. Thanks ever so much for listening. Don't forget you can follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok and threads. You can also get the details on the top stories direct to your email each morning by the briefing. To sign up, just head to kentonline.co.uk news you can trust. This is the kent online podcast. [BLANK_AUDIO]
