Search Results: no sexual activity

A 28-YEAR-OLD office worker has been jailed after spending the night with a 12-year-old girl he thought was 19.

Carl Hodgson was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail after inviting the child to his flat in Manchester city centre through a popular adult dating app.

Hodgson filmed her on his mobile phone and took 3 pictures as she wore a body stocking and sent it to a friend, Manchester Crown Court heard. He also pleasured himself while the girl looked on.

Sentencing Hodgson, Judge David Stockdale QC told him: "(The victim) was by reason of her age highly vulnerable to exploitation and she was no doubt impressed by you.

"This is most serious offending as you now fully appreciate. The effects on a child of such a young age of offending of this sort are really well too known and well too documented. "These effects, in many cases, last for the rest of the child's life.

"I take into account that while (the victim) was 12 years of age at the time of these offences you did not believe that to be the case. You thought, and on reasonable grounds, that she was over 16."

The court heard that the victim used a different name on her dating app profile and falsely stated she was 19.

The defendant pleaded guilty at earlier hearings to causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, distributing an indecent photograph of a child and making indecent photographs of a child.

"He is genuinely ashamed and remorseful for the circumstances he finds himself in but does not seek to minimize his behavior.

The court heard how his misconduct had a "profound" effect on him and had caused him to lose his "employment, his home and inevitable stigma".

Judge Stockdale said he was satisfied that Hodgson's remorse and regret was genuine and he noted the many testimonials he had received which spoke positively of the defendant's good character.