A church volunteer who sent more than 8,000 pages of inappropriate messages to a teenage girl and took part in sexual activity with her has been jailed. Nam Vu, 28, groomed the girl who he knew from a church in Cambridge – but it wasn’t long before her parents became suspicious. They discovered deleted screenshots on her phone of a sexually explicit nature, and a WhatsApp chat between the pair, but all messages had been deleted.
When confronted, the girl denied any hint of a sexual relationship and said she was just friends with Vu, of Linclare Place, Eaton Ford, St Neots.
However, more disturbing evidence came to light. A handwritten note from the girl, found inside a book, detailed sexual activity between them.
The teenager later confided in police, revealing Vu had made sexual remarks in messages, encouraged her to take part in sexual activity and touched her inappropriately.
Vu was arrested and answered “no comment” to all questions in police interview.
But forensic analysis of his phone told a different story. In just six weeks during 2024, there were more than 8,000 messages exchanged between Vu and the teenager – most of them sexual in nature.
The messages showed how Vu groomed the girl, offered to buy her clothes and complimented her. On multiple occasions he acknowledged she was under 16, admitted she could “ruin him”, said he could go to jail and that he was “putting his entire life on the line”.
Despite initially denying wrongdoing, Vu eventually pleaded guilty at Cambridge Crown Court in December to six offences, including:
- Engaging in sexual communication with a child
- Four counts of engaging in non-penetrative sexual activity with a girl aged 13 to 15
- 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.
Vu was ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely and handed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) with strict conditions to monitor any future offending and contact with children.
He was also given an indefinite restraining order preventing him from contacting his victim in any way.
Detective Constable Lara Wycherley, of the force’s Child Abuse Investigations and Safeguarding Unit (CAISU), said Vu had engaged in highly sexualised communication while acknowledging the girl’s age and his position of trust.
She described his behaviour as “utterly disgusting” and praised the girl’s parents for acting when they realised something was wrong.
In a victim impact statement, the teenager told the court the persistent nature of the abuse meant she was never able to truly see the danger she was in. She said Vu repeatedly told her to keep quiet and conditioned her to believe his crimes were her fault.
She added that the abuse had made her lose all trust in men, changed her perspective on people in a direction that isn’t pleasant, stripped her of her childhood innocence and left an irreparable scar.
