Latest Offenders Derbyshire

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A sex offender groped a naked woman at a house in Derby just three months after being released from prison for carrying out the exact same offence.

Derby Crown Court heard how Edward Felix “took advantage of the situation” when he sexually assaulted his latest victim at a property in Darley Abbey.

The 39-year-old, who was previously jailed for touching a different victim and taking photographs of her private parts, then “pretended to fall asleep”.

His latest victim, who suffers anxiety, left the property immediately and Felix then sent a text message the following morning apologising for what he did.

She now locks the door to her own home when she is left alone there and has increased her medication, the hearing was told.

'Back to your old ways'

Jailing Felix for 18 months, Judge Shaun Smith QC said: “In March 2018 you were released from a custodial sentence which was imposed for offences of voyeurism, sexual assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm and, within three months, you were back to your old ways again.

“This woman was at that house and felt ill.

“She was in a room under the covers and naked and you took advantage of the situation.

“You started by stroking her hair, moved your hand up to her rib cage and then she was aware of you groping her left breast.

“She moved away but you stroked her stomach and then moved your hand towards her genital area.

“She had the presence of mind to ask you what you were doing and, instead of apologising, you pretended to fall asleep.

“She wanted to leave and went to a friend's house. The following morning, you admitted you stroked her in places you should not have stroked her.

“You sent a text message saying you were sorry.”

Sarah Slater, prosecuting, said the offence took place in June of last year at a property in Darley Abbey.

She said Felix, of Cropper Lane, Oslaston, Ashbourne, had been out drinking and a number of people then found their way back to the address.

While there, the victim began feeling ill and so went to one of the rooms, undressed and got into bed.

Miss Slater said Felix entered the room, got under the covers and started stroking the woman’s hair.

Cupped her breast

She said: “He put his hand under the duvet and she felt him direct his hand to her rib cage and then cup her left breast.

“She did not know what to do and so moved away but then felt his hand on her stomach and then moved down towards her pubic area.

“She said to him ‘what are you doing?’ and he pretended to fall asleep.”

Miss Slater said the woman left the property and, the following morning, Felix sent a text message which read “I really am so sorry”.

In a victim personal statement, the woman told how she feels “jumpy and dirty” if someone touches her and locks all of the doors at her own property when her boyfriend is not in.

Felix was arrested and at first denied anything had happened at the house in Darley Abbey.

But he later pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault.

Miss Slater said he was jailed for 22 months in March 2017 after taking intimate photographs of a woman’s private parts and showing them to his friends.

Julia King, mitigating, said her client was back living with his parents and has admitted himself to Aquarius, which is based in London Road, Derby, and helps people with alcohol and drugs issues.

She said: “Without minimising the seriousness of the offence, there is no significant planning and no violence was involved.

“He has reached the realisation he has a real problem which he needs to address.”

Judge Smith said although the probation service recommended Felix would benefit from a three-year community order, which was also urged on him by Miss King, he would be “failing in his public duty” if he did not send him into immediate custody.

He also placed him on the sex offender’s register for 10 years and handed him a 10-year restraining order not to contact the victim directly or indirectly.

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The mother of a girl who was raped when she was just 12 after she was groomed online by a Derbyshire paedophile is warning parents to make sure they know what children get up to on the internet.

The 42-year-old mum has issued the warning after Jordan Richards, formerly of Walton Street, Long Eaton, was jailed for two years for rape and sexual activity with a child.

The pervert, now 21, had pleaded guilty to rape and not guilty to the other charge of sexual activity with a child but was convicted by a jury following a trial at Nottingham Crown Court in February.

On two separate occasions, in 2013, Richards befriended two young girls aged 12 and 13 on Facebook and, after some months of messaging, arranged to meet up with them which is when the sexual activity took place.

The mother of the girl who was raped now wants to raise awareness of what happened to her daughter.

She said: I didnt have any suspicions that my girl was up to anything out of the ordinary online. She would chat to boys but everything seemed quite child-like and innocent she didnt seem secretive about it at all.

During the trial, the court heard how Richards had claimed that he thought the 13-year-old girl was older but the messages read out showed that he was aware of her true age.

The court was also told how he had sent suggestive and flattering Facebook messages to the girls. The mother of the 12-year-old said, when she found out the extent of what had happened to her daughter, she was devastated.

She said: To think that he had taken our innocent little girl, taken advantage of her naivety and age with the messages he sent, then arranged to meet up and raped her is absolutely disgusting. She was obviously going to look up to him because he was an older boy.

She didnt know what he had in mind, he should have known better.

Richards will now have to sign the Sex Offender Register for 10 years and was also given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order which limits his internet activity and contact with girls under the age of 16. These include having unsupervised contact with a girl under 16, using the internet to contact a girl under 16 and deleting internet history.

The mum said the family has been through a lot over the past four years but this made it all worthwhile.

She added: Im glad that Richards received a custodial sentence in the first instance because hopefully thatll make him realise the seriousness of what hes done. But the fact that hes got these prohibitions against him means that when he does come out of jail, he wont be able to target other girls in this way.

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Derby Crown Court heard on Monday, January 11, how Robert Stringer, 61, of Byron Street, Buxton, admitted possessing 650 indecent images, an indecent movie and an indecent photo of a different category and he also breached an order banning him from using mobiles with internet.

Prosecuting barrister Abi Joyce said: Stringer was convicted in March, 2009, for possession of indecent photos and he got a 12 month prison sentence and was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for ten years.

The order included banning him from the possession of any computer with a facility of displaying images.

On May 11, 2012, he was found guilty of breaching the Sexual Offender Prevention Order by being in possession of a computer and he received a community order.

The conditions of the SOPO were varied to prohibit him from using any device capable of accessing the internet unless it had the capacity to retain internet history.

Stringer was subject to checks and in January, 2013, he was found guilty of making photos of children and received a three-year community order.

Despite Stringers previous convictions, Miss Joyce explained how Stringers offender manager became aware of information that he had a mobile phone in August, 2015, and he was seen using it while driving and it was identified.

The court heard how police attended Stringers address and he failed to declare the phone but officers identified the make of phone, called it successfully and established it had an internet plan.

The defendant told police he committed the latest offences because he was annoyed at the accusations and thought he might as well do it and as he looked at adult porn sites they would piggy-back to teen sites with 14 to 18-year-olds.

He stated to police that he felt guilty because he has daughters but he denied being sexually attracted to children.

Stringer pleaded guilty to breaching a SOPO by possessing a mobile with internet between October, 2013 and September, 2015. He also pleaded guilty to possessing an indecent photo of a child and an indecent movie and 650 indecent images between June and September, 2015.

Defence barrister James Riley urged the court to consider a suspended prison sentence to allow Stringer to work with probation and police to overcome problems.

But Judge Jonathan Bennett sentenced Stringer to 12 months of custody.

He told the defendant: You demonstrated calculated defiance and your case is aggravated by previous convictions.

You have made little progress and you didnt recognise that you have a significant problem.

Custody is appropriate because of your calculated defiance and you have had two community orders and you made no progress and you have carried on offending.

The court heard how the movie and images included youngsters aged around 13 and 14 to 16.

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A rape victim was forced to play dead in a desperate attempt to survive a sex attack by a predator, a court was told.

Vile Jason Sedgwick was convicted of a string of sex assaults after pleading guilty to rape at Derby Crown Court.

He was jailed for 16 years after the court heard how in one sex attack he ripped his victim's clothes off and put his hands around her throat.

The victim then played dead, which police claim is the only reason she survived the ordeal.

Derby Crown Court heard Sedgwick, 30, also sexually assaulted two other women - attacking all three in the space of eight months.

Sedgwick stalked one of his victims to her home and then went inside uninvited to sexually assault her while her mother and son slept upstairs.

The court was told how he groped a third woman in the street, putting his hand down her top.

Judge John Burgess told him he was "a danger to women" as he jailed him for 16 years.

He said: "Looking at all the offences together, it is a very disturbing pattern, because what you were doing was loitering outside pubs and clubs, waiting to find a vulnerable, lone female who had been seriously affected by drink.

"And on three occasions you exploited their situation for your sexual gratification."

He said the offences were "planned, purposeful and predatory".

Sedgwick, of Long Eaton, Derbys, admitted the rape charge on the first day of his trial held in March.

While the rapist denied the two sexual assaults, which were committed in the months leading up to the rape, a jury found him guilty on both counts.

Grace Hale, prosecuting, said of Sedgwick's final attack that he approached the woman after she became separated from friends in the early hours of July 6 last year after leaving a nightclub in Long Eaton.

She said: "He kept picking her up like a baby and she told him to put her down. He did it a few times. He put her down eventually and she said she needed to ring her friend."

Her friends however we unable to find her until after the attack had taken place, the court heard.

Sedgwick was arrested after police put out an appeal and a witness came forward and identified him.

Kath Goddard, for Sedgwick, said he had no recollection of the rape, but when he had become aware of what he had done, he was "truly appalled and ashamed" that he was capable of doing such a thing.

Sedgwick was told he would be on licence in the community from when he was released until 2036. He will be on the sex offenders' register for life.

Following the sentencing Detective Inspector Donna Sisson said: "This could have been a murder investigation."

She added the three victims had been "incredibly brave in coming forward and going through the judicial process".

Investigating officer Detective Constable Ritchie Parkins said: "I'm pleased all three of the victims have got justice and hope they can take some comfort that this dangerous man has now been taken off the streets."

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A long-serving teacher at a Derbyshire school has been sentenced for having a sexual relationship with a pupil.

Mark Fidler, who was removed from his post last year, wept in the dock as he was jailed.

He was working at Belper School when he began having intercourse with the teenager, whose identity is protected by law.

During their time together, a court heard she sent him a topless photograph of herself as well as pictures of her in her underwear which were found in a drawer in his office by a colleague.

The 49-year-old was spotted alone with the victim in his classroom, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

He later admitted they had been away together and had sex and that he had bought her gifts such as underwear, jewellery and clothes.

He originally pleaded guilty at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court last month but a court order prevented Derbyshire Live from naming the school.

Naming Belper School in the public interest

At the sentencing, the prosecution applied to the court to prevent the media from naming the school where Fidler worked.

However, our reporter successfully counter-argued to Judge Steven Coupland that naming Belper School and Sixth Form Centre as his place of work was in the public interest.

Dismissing the prosecution application and handing Fidler a 22-month jail term, Judge Coupland said: “You had been a teacher for more than a quarter of a century and head of music for a number of years.

“You were in a position of responsibility and knew what the rules were about sexual contact with pupils.

“Your teacher’s ethos must have told you about that."

Damage to the victim

“You should have taken steps to distance yourself from her but instead you moved closer," said the judge.

“She gave no victim statement but the reality is the damage this has caused her is impossible to quantify.”

Leanne Summers, prosecuting, said Fidler, of Johnson Drive, Heanor, had worked at Belper School since 1993 and had been head of music since 2002.

Fidler was dismissed from his role in December 2018 following an internal investigation.

She had stayed over at his home

Miss Summers said: “After being dismissed, a colleague was looking in the defendant’s office drawers and found a memory stick which contained pictures of the victim topless and in her underwear.

“He was arrested and candid, saying the lines had become blurred and that they were seeing each other three times a week.

“He said she had stayed over at his home, they had been away together that he had bought her gifts such as jewellery, clothes and underwear.”

'Honest man who lost sight of his responsibilities'

Miss Summers said that, as part of the police investigation, Fidler’s phone had been seized and it was discovered he had been Googling whether what he and the victim were doing was illegal or not.

She said the victim was interviewed by the police and admitted she and Fidler had been involved in a sexual relationship.

At Southern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court in July, Fidler pleaded guilty to one count of sexual activity with a girl while in a position of trust and one count of possessing 13 indecent images of the victim – 10 pictures and three videos.

Andrew Wesley, mitigating at the sentencing hearing in Nottingham, said his client has children of his own who he now no longer sees and has no previous convictions of any kind.

He said he started suffering depression following the break-up of his relationship with his former partner.

Mr Wesley said: “It was when there was nothing left to hide that he co-operated with the police.

“He is fundamentally an honest man who lost sight of his responsibilities as a teacher and an adult.”