A COUPLE involved with a paedophile hunting group have been sentenced for assaulting a woman and causing injuries to her nose.

David Poole was found guilty following a trial at Hereford Magistrates Court of assaulting a person thereby occasioning them actual bodily harm.

His partner Kirstie Cleary, 28, had already pleaded guilty to assaulting a person thereby occasioning them actual bodily harm.

The couple assaulted Zoe Sirrell in the Newton Farm area of the city in April 2017.

She went to hospital and received treatment for injuries to her nose.

The assault followed an argument on the ‘H Division’ Facebook page which came just days after Poole appeared on the front page of the Hereford Times defying the police’s wishes for people to refrain from staging their own paedophile stings.

Poole, 39, pleaded guilty to two charges of using threatening and abusive insulting words and behaviour, with intent to cause fear or to provoke unlawful violence and Cleary also pleaded guilty to one charge of threatening and abusive insulting words and behaviour, with intent to cause fear or to provoke unlawful violence.

This was in relation to a sting carried out near the McDonald’s restaurant on Hereford’s Belmont Road on March 11 last year.

Cleary also pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis/cannabis resin.

Poole, from Hereford, was sentenced to a community order for 12 months including participating in a Rehabilitation Activity Requirement for ten days.

He was fined £60 and ordered to pay court costs of £320.

Cleary was sentenced to a community order for 12 months and ordered to participate in a Rehabilitation Activity Requirement for 15 days. She was fined £40 and told to pay court costs of £135.00.

A restraining order was made that said both Poole and Cleary must have no contact, directly or indirectly, with Zoe Sirrell. It will remain in place until March 4, 2021.

Cleary was ordered to pay £75 compensation to Sirrell.