Description
A man who sexually assaulted a teenage girl was caught after she managed to call a family member who heard much of the attack.
Connor Helps attacked the girl at a flat in Warrington town centre after taking her there in September 2019.
Helps was the second man to attack the girl, despite her being just 17. Another man is currently serving a prison sentence for his crimes.
Arthur Gibson, prosecuting, said Helps had already known the girl but contact between them had stopped when he went to prison for separate offences.
After his release he got back in touch with her and invited her back to a flat in Warrington in mid-September.
Mr Gibson said that despite the girl's continued protests he tried to force his hands down her leggings and assaulted her.
He said: "What the defendant did not know was that at some point during this incident she had managed to call [a family member] and kept him on the phone.
"He had heard much of the incident."
A victim impact statement read out to the court from the girl said the attack continued to have significant effects on her.
Richard Orme, defending, said that despite a difficult upbringing Helps had showed little sign of criminality in his youth before "going off the rails" in his early 20s and committing a number of violent offences.
Mr Orme said: "On any view he has had a troubled childhood. His mother left the family when he was seven years old.
"He then went into foster care with a number of families.
"Such a background will have inevitably had a detrimental impact."
He continued: "I do not use that as an excuse. His behaviour in this case is inexcusable.
"I use it to lay out, perhaps, why at the age of 23 this defendant went off the rails."
Judge Stuart Driver, QC, said Helps' crime was particularly serious because of the trauma his victim had already been through, despite him accepting that Helps likely did not know about this.
Judge Driver said: "Your victim was vulnerable.
"She had already been the victim of a sexual offence, although you may not have known that and I sentence you on the basis that you did not know.
"She was only 17 years of age and her most recent statement shows that this crime had a significant impact on her."
Helps, of no fixed abode, was jailed for 38 months after pleading guilty to assault by penetration.
He will also have to sign on to the sex offenders register for life.
He was also sentenced to one month in prison after failing to turn up to a previous court hearing. That sentence will be served concurrently