Teenager avoids jail after admitting sex with 13-year-old (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Cirencester teenager avoids jail after sex with 13-year-old

3:30pm Tuesday 12th February 2013 in News

A TEENAGER who was warned by police in 2011 after he said he was sexually attracted to children has avoided jail after admitting having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Daniel Archibald, 18, was known to have an obsession with young girls before he committed the offence and had been visited at Cirencester College by police in November 2011 because he said he was having fantasies about girls as young as 12 and his feelings were 'out of control.'

Gloucester Crown Court was also told Archibald had even been banned from owning a mobile phone by his father who had discovered the teenager had been sending sexually explicit texts.

But he got hold of another phone and it was a message seen on that by his stepmother that revealed he had had sex with the 13-year-old girl, the court was told.

Archibald, of Whiteway View, Cirencester, admitted sexual activity with a child on June 6 last year.

Prosecutor Anna Vigars said the victim had got to know Archibald through friends and had sent sexually explicit messages to her.

On June 6 last year they had stayed the night at a friend's house where they had sex.

Ms Vigars said: "The girl did not object to sex but said later she had not really wanted to do it."

She refused to continue a relationship with Archibald and later sent him a text relating to the night they had slept together.

That text was read by Archibald's step-mother who reported it.

Ms Vigars said Archibald knew the girl was at school but thought she was 15.

Dermot Clarke, defending, said Archibald had not thought his offence was serious but now realised it was.

He added that Archibald would be 'damaged' by custody and would probably return to society in a worse state than he is now.

Judge William Hart agreed it would have a "devastating effect".

The judge gave him a 12-month jail sentence suspended for two years and placed him under 'intensive' supervision, also for two years as well as a 16-week curfew from 9pm-6am.

"You have a very worrying pre-occupation with sex and particularly sexual activity with under aged girls," Judge Hart said.

"I suspect you gravitate towards younger girls because you find them on a similar level of emotional and intellectual development as yourself. "

Archibald will have to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years.