Paedophile who paid to have child delivered dies weeks into jail sentence

A prisoner has died weeks after being jailed for child sexual offences. Nicholas Page, 75, had admitted agreeing to pay for a girl to be delivered to his house so he could sexually abuse her. Page, from Llanelli, was sentenced last month at Swansea Crown Court to a three-year prison term. He served time at Bridgend's HMP Parc before being moved to a hospital where he died on May 7. During his sentencing hearing the prosecutor Craig Jones said the crimes came to light following evidence from a care worker at Carmarthenshire council who made regular visits to the defendant's house. On one of those visits Page began telling the carer about conversations he was having with someone about sexual encounters with girls "as young as 14". Page showed the carer a picture of a female on his phone and asked him how old he thought she was. The carer made a report to his manager who then alerted police. Police raided Page's home and seized his phone. They found texts between the defendant and an unknown person where Page was "actively trying to obtain" indecent images of children as young as eight, the court heard. Police also found conversations where Page was soliciting sexual activity with young girls in return for payments. In one conversation it was arranged that a girl would be brought to the defendant's house at 2pm the following day. In fact no girl attended the address and the defendant sent a series of angry texts demanding to know where she was. Mr Jones said: "The clear inference is he was paying for the provision of children to be brought to his property." Judge Paul Thomas KC said the texts showed the purpose of the payment was to facilitate abuse although it may have been – as Page himself came to believe – that he was "conned" by the person he was talking to. In other conversations Page talked about wanting sex with virgins and how, while his preference was for 13-year-olds, he was also interested in children aged "10 or younger". Page, of Ropewalk Road in Llanelli , pleaded guilty to attempting to possess indecent images of children and arranging a child sexual offence. He had no previous convictions. The court heard Page was originally due to be sentenced in May last year but repeatedly failed to attend court citing medical reasons for which he did not provide documentary evidence. He was eventually arrested on a warrant in December and remanded into custody. The court heard he has "remained uncooperative" with attempts to assist the court with medical reports. Ryan Bowen, for Page, said his client was "a product of his childhood experiences" having been placed in care at a young age. He said "the care system of seven decades ago was not what it is today" and that his client experienced physical and other kinds of abuse. Judge Thomas said there was no realistic prosect of rehabilitation and imposed a three-year jail term. A spokesman for G4S, the private security firm that runs Parc, said: “Mr Nicholas Page passed away at an outside hospital on May 7. As with all deaths in custody this will be investigated by [the prisons ombudsman]. The cause of death will be for the coroner to determine.” Following the sentencing Dyfed-Powys Police told us it was unable to provide a custody photograph of the defendant. Get daily breaking news updates on your phone by joining our WhatsApp community here . We occasionally treat members to special offers, promotions and ads from us and our partners. See our Privacy Notice .