Locations
Walton Street, Long Eaton, Derbyshire, NG10
Description
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.