Locations
Camp Hill, Bugbrooke, Northampton, NN7
Description
A Northampton man who was found guilty of repeatedly raping an 11-year-old girl has been jailed for 17-and-a-half years.
Andrew Brian Nicholls, 46, was last month found guilty of 14 charges at Northampton Crown Court relating to the abuse he carried out between 2014 and 2017, which began when his victim was just 11.
The court heard Nicholls began abusing the girl when she walked in on him watching pornography.
This escalated into repeated rapes until she informed Northamptonshire Police of the abuse in 2017.
Nicholls, formerly of Camp Hill, Bugbrooke, was subsequently charged with offences including multiple rapes, sexual activity with a child, and taking indecent photos of a child.
On October 4, a jury at Northampton Crown Court returned guilty verdicts on all 14 charges against him.
Today, Tuesday, November 2, His Honour Judge Rupert Mayo handed Nicholls 13 concurrent sentences ranging from three to 14-and-a-half years, plus one consecutive sentence of three years, making a total of 17-and-a-half years in prison.
Telling the defendant to look at him as he passed sentence, Judge Mayo said Nicholls had robbed his victim of a happy and innocent childhood and forced her to live in fear of him revealing videos he had made of his repeated attacks.
The judge added that even when his victim became withdrawn as a result of her ongoing ordeal, Nicholls knew he was the cause 'yet you continued to use her to satisfy your own paedophilic urges' and had also encouraged others to turn on her when she finally reported what had happened to police.
He concluded: “This was sustained abuse of a particularly vulnerable victim.”
Upon release from prison, Nicholls will spend the remainder of his sentence on licence.
He will also be subject to a sexual harm prevention order, indefinitely barring him from living or staying with any female child under the age of 16 without the approval of social services and the child’s parent or guardian having knowledge of his convictions.
He will also be on the sex offenders’ register for life.