A SHIPYARD worker has been sacked and faces jail after setting up a fake Facebook profile in a colleague’s name and trying to encourage paedophiles to assault a child, a court was told.

Stuart Calum Westwood launched his campaign of terror against a fellow BAE Systems colleague in 2017, prosecutors said.

Between September 2017 and October 2018 he set up a fake account on Facebook, pretending to be the victim and listing BAE as their place of work, and then used the profile to send messages of a sexual nature to other shipyard workers, Preston Crown Court heard.

One of the people he messaged, who also worked at the yard in Barrow, responded and sent similar messages back, the court was told.

Prosecutors said in the messages Westwood encouraged men to attend his victim’s home having made them believe they were doing so to engage in sexual activity with a child or the victim.

Westwood, who lived at Andover Street on Barrow Island at the time, worked at the yard on the shopfloor, the court heard.

He was suspended after he was arrested and has since been sacked. 

A BAE Systems spokesperson said: “The individual was immediately suspended once the allegations were made and we can confirm he is no longer a BAE Systems employee.”

When he appeared at Preston Crown Court in November 2018 Westwood denied six counts of publishing an obscene article, stalking involving fear of violence and breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order by possessing a mobile phone capable of accessing the internet.

He was remanded in custody and a five-day trial took place at Preston Crown Court. The jury found him guilty on all eight counts.

Westwood, 46, will return to Preston Crown Court on Friday to be sentenced.

The maximum sentence for stalking involving fear of violence is 10 years; while publishing an obscene article and breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order each carry a maximum sentence of five years.

Sexual Harm Prevention Orders orders are imposed when sex offenders are convicted.

In 2013 Westwood was given a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, for a string of offences.

He had been caught with hundreds of images and videos depicting sexual abuse against children as young as five and others showing extreme animal pornography including dogs, horses, a goat, a monkey, a pig and an eel.

Westwood pleaded guilty to a total of 13 offences; including possessing 18 level four indecent images of children, publishing two obscene articles during internet text chats, and possessing 144 extreme pornographic images of animals.

Those charges dated back to April 2009 and covered the period up to April 2013.

Indecent images are classified between levels one and five with five representing the most extreme.

Level four images depict penetrative sexual activity involving children.