Locations
Skirlaugh Road, Old Ellerby, Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, HU11
Description
A disgraced East Yorkshire businessman with 'underlying perverted thoughts' who groped a young girl after giving her whisky her has been jailed.
Adam Plant, director of East Riding Horse Boxes Ltd and producer of upmarket motor homes, sent highly sexualised messages to the girl and groped her after giving her a glass of whisky.
He then later tried to cover his tracks, deleted screenshots of incriminating messages on her phone and tried to convince the girl's mother to drop the complaint.
Plant, 42, of Skirlaugh Road, Old Ellerby, denied the three charges of sexual activity with a girl under the age of 16, engaging in sexual communication with a child and perverting the course of justice.
He was convicted by a jury of eight men and four women at Hull Crown Court after a trial in August this year.
During Plant's sentencing at Hull Crown Court on Wednesday, prosecutor Richard Thompson read sections from the victim impact statement in which the girl said: “I probably won’t see boys and men in the same way I used to.
“When I am old enough and when I’m doing older stuff I think it just won’t be the same because of what he did.
“I still get scared whenever I go somewhere that I think I might see him.”
The young victim and her family were said to have faced significant difficulties and strains as a result of Plant’s predatory acts and she said: “Sometimes I just think it is all my fault.”
The court also heard a statement from the victim’s mother who, wracked by feelings of guilt, had attempted to commit suicide shortly after being informed of her daughter’s ordeal.
The statement said: “I took an overdose of pills, I was found on the Humber Bridge, I don’t know what I might have done.
“I couldn’t cope, I was heartbroken, I didn’t know how I was ever going to overcome this.
“I now live with the guilt every day that I nearly took my own life too. I had six months off work, I couldn’t even look after myself never mind other people.
“The hurt and anger is something that we are all still coming to terms with.”