Jail for man who sexually assaulted teenager in Norwich
Christine CunninghamA man who groomed a 13-year-old girl by bombarding her with text messages arranged to meet up with her in Norwich and then sexually assaulted her, a court has heard.Christine Cunningham
A man who groomed a 13-year-old girl by bombarding her with text messages arranged to meet up with her in Norwich and then sexually assaulted her, a court has heard.
Trevor Conway, 28, sent the girl hundreds of text messages, some of which were sexually explicit, after initially meeting her in the city.
Despite knowing she was only 13, he sexually touched her after arranging to meet her again, Norwich Crown Court heard yesterday.
Conway was arrested after the girl told her friend about what happened. Her friend contacted Childline who told her to persuade the victim to tell her parents about what happened, which she then did and police were contacted.
Conway, of no fixed address, admitted sexually grooming the girl and two offences of sexual activity with the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
Hugh Vass, prosecuting, said that Conway, who was 27 at the time, had met the girl at the Castle Mall shopping centre. He said that Conway started sending 50 to 100 texts a day as well as calling her.
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Mr Vass said that some of the text messages were of an 'explicitly sexual nature.' Conway arranged to meet up with the girl and he kissed her and sexually touched her and she said she felt 'scared and nervous' because of his age.
Jailing Conway for 12 months and placing him on the sex offenders' register for 10 years, Judge Peter Jacobs told him: 'She was very young and immature; you sent her 50 to 100 texts a day and were making all the running to try to have some sort of sexual relationship with her.'
He also made a sexual prevention order under which Conway must not have any unsupervised contact with anyone under 16.
Michael Clare, for Conway, said his behaviour had not been as sinister as someone in a position of trust, such as a teacher who then groomed a young girl.
'In this case it is an immature man feeling more comfortable with younger people,' he said.
Mr Clare added there was no premeditation involved and said the sexual touching was at the lower end of the scale.
After the case, the family of the victim said they felt that justice had not been done at the sentence handed out to Conway.
