Connor Naylor 22

Description

A convicted child rapist from Burneside engaged in explicit online chat with a 12-year-old girl and encouraged her to engage in sexual acts.

Connor Naylor, now 20, was initially sentenced in 2018 for raping a young girl while aged in his mid-teens.

He received a detention and training order as punishment and was placed on the sex offenders register for five years.

But over the course of four months, between March and July, 2020, Naylor struck up an online relationship with a girl he met on a gaming site.

"During the time period," prosecutor Kim Whittlestone told Carlisle Crown Court, "the defendant asked the victim for indecent photographs and also sent them in return."

She claimed to be 16, repeating this to Naylor despite the defendant having been contacted by her father and told she was only 12.

In July, 2020, the girls sister found evidence of the explicit chat

Police were contacted and, when Naylors phone was examined, still and moving images of the girl engaging in sexual activity were found on WhatsApp.

In interview, Naylor, of Hall Park, Burneside, agreed he was contacted by the girls father but said she claimed to be 16 when challenged.

Naylor admitted four offences: causing a child aged under 13 to engage in sexual activity; causing a child to watch a sexual act; and possession of indecent photographs of a child.

Eight images were classed in category A - the most serious - and 50 in category C.

Carlisle Crown Court heard Naylor was deemed to be "emotionally immature", suffered from Asperger's syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), had been bullied at school and been unable to form age-appropriate relationships.

A probation officer concluded he was "remorseful and reflective", and had made no attempt to minimise his criminal conduct.

"Of course Mr Naylor needs to be punished," said Jacob Dyer, defending. "It is significant, perhaps, he did not have the input he needed at a much earlier time, following the commission of the (rape) offence."

Judge Simon Medland QC acknowledged Naylor's personal difficulties as he handed down a 32-month custodial sentence.

He imposed an extended three-year licence period, concluding that Naylor continued to pose a risk of serious harm to members of the public.

"You may not agree with what I have done," said Judge Medland, addressing Naylor's parents in the court public gallery. "I thought it was the right thing to do, and the necessary thing to do."

Naylor was made subject to the strict terms of a prevention order and must sign the sex offenders' register, both indefinitely.