Daniel Shufflebotham-Reeve 26

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A man has been spared jail after sexually abusing a girl when he was 10-years-old by acting out his porn fantasies.

Daniel Shufflebotham-Reeve, now 25, played out sex acts on a younger girl he’d watched in online pornography, a court heard.

At the time, Shufflebotham-Reeve, of Kidlington, Oxfordshire, was not brought to justice, despite the victim's teacher being aware of the allegations.

The police only became involved in 2019 when the defendant walked into the business where his victim was working. 

After a conversation with her partner, she reported the abuse she faced back in primary school. In court, she said much of her life has been spent "crying and refusing to leave the house" because of the sexual abuse.

A jury at Oxford Crown Court last month found him guilty of four charges, including rape and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

In a victim impact statement read to Shufflebotham-Reeve’s sentencing hearing on Wednesday (September 20), the woman said: "So much of my life has been wasted crying and refusing to leave the house due to extreme anxiety, all because of him and what he did to me."

She would "never forgive" her abuser or understand why he carried out the sexual abuse, she said.

The court heard that he had played out sexual acts he had seen in pornography watched on his laptop.

He both sexually assaulted her and got the girl, who was younger than him, to carry out sex acts on him.

Shufflebotham-Reeve warned his victim that, if she did not do as he asked, he would "tell everyone and no one would love her".

Sentencing, Judge Maria Lamb told the defendant, who continues to deny that the incidents happened: "You committed upon that little girl acts which no child should have to endure. She wanted none of it."

Had he been an adult when he carried out the abuse, he could have expected years behind bars, the court heard.

However, because he was only just of an age when he could be prosecuted, it was likely he would have received a type of youth court community order – called a youth rehabilitation order – had his case been dealt with when he was 10 or 11.

By law, judges dealing with adults who committed their crimes when under-18 must take into account the sentence a defendant would have received if they were dealt with as a child.

Judge Lamb imposed a two year community order, saying: "I think, taking all these matters into consideration, the likely sentence had I been dealing with you as a 10-year-old would have been one of a youth rehabilitation order.

"The circumstance of the offending cry out, it seems to me, for the type of help that would offer.

"I can see no reason for departing from that approach to sentencing, where you have gone on to lead a life in which you have not offended further."

The judge gave an extensive set of sentencing remarks, recognising the sensitivities of the case. She noted that the defendant and his victim had been known to each other and, as children do, had ‘held hands’. 

"Sadly, that acting out of adult acts went beyond the playground and on occasions when the two of you were together in your bedroom you showed her the discovery you had made on your laptop: pornography,” Judge Lamb said.

"You wanted to do the same with her and you told her you wanted to copy it and the expressions she remembers you using to her – for example, ‘you’re making me this way’ – was you I am sure, echoing the sort of expressions you had heard spoken by adults in the footage that you had viewed."

She added of the victim: "She said that you told her if she did what you wanted, whether that was an act done to her by you […] or getting her to do acts to you […] if you complied with that it wouldn’t happen again.

"If she didn’t do it, you would tell everyone and no one would love her. She was scared to go to your house because she feared what might happen. She was more scared of the consequences if she didn’t.

"She was ashamed of what you had made her do and, of course, it goes without saying she has no cause to reproach herself for that which you did to her." 

The judge hit out at the ‘corrosive impact’ on children of watching adult pornography, quoting from a pre-sentence report written by an experienced probation officer.

"‘It,’ he says, ‘would be difficult to overstate how damaging the consumption of pornographic material could be to a child’s sexual development.’ He refers to the corrosive impact of the routine consumption of online pornography and that is as far as adults let alone children are concerned.

"With those sentiments, I agree."

Mitigating, Sumita Mahtab-Shaikh said her client had been suspended from his job as a receptionist at the Premier Inn. There were question marks over whether he would be able to continue working at the hotel.

He was supported by a number of character references that spoke of ‘highly of him now’, the barrister said.