April 9 2015.


A Newhaven man has been charged with sex offences against young boys. Michael Cole, 29, unemployed, of Newhaven, was charged when he answered to police bail on Sunday the 5th of April, with 13 sexual offences and appeared in custody at Brighton Magistrates Court on Monday the 6th of April. He was then committed for trial, on conditional court bail, for an initial hearing at Lewes Crown Court on May the 7th.

He is charged with eleven offences of inciting sexual activity with a total of nine local boys from the Seahaven area, and with two offences of possessing an indecent image of a child.

Ten of the eleven incitement offences relate to alleged on-line contact - one relates to an offence of alleged physical contact.

The charges, authorised by the CPS, follow an investigation into allegations that teenagers in the Seahaven area were being tricked and blackmailed into sending inappropriate images online.

Cole was arrested in October last year, and has been on police bail since, while the investigation continued and the CPS considered police reports.