Locations
Lincoln Road, Burslem, Stoke-On-Trent, Staffordshire, ST6
Description
Ex-pub manager Mark Smith has been jailed for eight years after sexually abusing a schoolgirl. The 52-year-old - who used to run The Black Horse, in Chesterton - had always denied seven charges of sexual assault and two charges of assault by penetration.
But he was found guilty of all nine charges by a jury at his trial earlier this month. He was jailed at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court yesterday.
The court heard that Smith - of Lincoln Road, Cobridge - had grabbed the teenager's breasts and thighs, kissed her, and touched her breasts and bottom. He once exposed himself to his victim and told her he wanted to have sex with her 'whether she wanted it or not' and on another occasion sexually assaulted her at a 'creepy old park and building.
The abuse has had a profound effect on the victim. She said: "I am constantly looking over my shoulder to see where he is. This is not my fault. It is all his.
Darron Whitehead, mitigating, said: "He knows it is to be a custodial sentence measured in years. He knows he will be on the Sex Offenders' Register and subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO)."
The defendant will be subject to the Sex Offenders' Register and his SHPO indefinitely. He must serve two-thirds of his prison sentence before he is released.
Recorder Anthony Warner told Smith: "You threatened her and told her she would not be believed. Your threats worked as she never told anyone at all about what you were doing."