Church Volunteer Jailed After Grooming Teen Girl and Sending 8,000 Sexual Messages

A 28-year-old man from Eaton Ford has been jailed after grooming a teenage girl he knew through a Cambridge church, sending more than 8,000 sexually explicit messages over six weeks and engaging in sexual activity with her. He will remain on the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely. The victim cannot be identified for legal reasons.

A church volunteer who groomed a teenage girl, sent her thousands of sexually explicit messages and engaged in sexual activity with her has been jailed.

Nam Vu, 28, of Linclare Place, Eaton Ford, St Neots, knew the girl through a church in Cambridge. Her parents became suspicious after discovering deleted screenshots of a sexually explicit nature on her phone and a WhatsApp chat between the pair in which all messages had been deleted.

When challenged, the teenager initially denied any sexual relationship and said she was just friends with Vu. However, further evidence later emerged, including a handwritten note found in a book which detailed sexual activity between them.

The girl then disclosed to police that Vu had made sexual remarks to her in messages, encouraged her to take part in sexual activity and touched her inappropriately.

Vu was arrested and gave “no comment” answers during interview. His phone was seized and analysed, and officers found that in a six-week period during 2024 there were more than 8,000 messages between him and the teenager — most of them sexual in nature.

Police said the messages showed how Vu groomed the girl, offered to buy her clothes and complimented her. On multiple occasions within the chat, Vu acknowledged the girl was under 16, saying she could “ruin him”, that he could go to jail and that he was “putting his entire life on the line”.

Vu later pleaded guilty at Cambridge Crown Court in December to six offences: engaging in sexual communication with a child; four counts of engaging in non-penetrative sexual activity with a girl aged 13 to 15; and inciting a girl aged 13 to 15 to engage in sexual activity.

He was sentenced at Peterborough Crown Court on Thursday 19 February to a total of three years and four months in prison. The court also ordered him to sign the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely and imposed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, alongside an indefinite restraining order preventing him from contacting the victim in any way.

Detective Constable Lara Wycherley, from the force’s Child Abuse Investigations and Safeguarding Unit, said Vu engaged in “highly sexualised communication” while acknowledging the girl’s age and his position of trust, and praised the parents for raising concerns.

Police are reminding parents and carers to talk to children about who they are communicating with. Anyone concerned a convicted sex offender may pose a risk to a child can apply for disclosure information through Sarah’s Law.