James Harcourt 40

Description

A CONVICTED sex offender who lost everything when his partner discovered his past is now behind bars after an anonymous phone call to the NSPCC revealed a second victim.

James Harcourt was given a community rehabilitation order in 2003 for having sex with an underage girl when he was 19.

Later, he started a relationship with a different underage girl although no complaint was ever made to the police.

But in the summer of 2016, a call was made to the childrens charity expressing concerns about what had happened years earlier, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Harcourt, now 35, was said to have been violent and controlling when he was with the girl, who then learned about his earlier conviction.

The pair stopped seeing one another when Harcourt got jealous about the teenager being close to somebody else.

He moved on and started dating a woman in her 40s, prosecutor Richard Bennett told the court.

But when she found out about his past with the teenager, she ended their relationship.

Dan Cordey, mitigating, told the court: His new partner was horrified by what she had been told.

Because he has been unable to provide a supervisor for the contact, he has not seen his children since then, since 2016.

He has lost contact with his children. He has lost his relationship and his home, and although he has managed to keep working for some time, since last December when he went on the sick, he has now lost his job.

Against that background, when he came to this court, what Mr Harcourt did was to fully accept what had gone on. He didnt seek to make excuses or prevaricate about his plea.

For a man who has effectively lost everything, he could have been tempted to take a chance. He didnt do that. He was honest to the court.

James Harcourt now recognises what he did was absolutely wrong. The probation report states he had a romantic view of the relationship.

At the time, he was growing up, he recognises now he had problems.

He would wish me to stress, as a mature adult, he has lived a blameless life in the sense that he settled down, had relationships with adult women, one of whom has born him children, and for 13 years, he worked, worked hard, and provided for his family.

Harcourt, of Chandos Street, Darlington, admitted seven charges of sexual activity with a child, and was jailed for ten-and-a-half years.

Judge Sean Morris told him: You were delaying your guilty plea for quite some time, and not accepting your guilt from the start just caused more heartache to your victim.

The result of your actions means you have not seen your sons for a considerable amount of time. It is not just your life you have wrecked, it is those children.