Daniel Stacey 41

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A 40-year-old man who secretly communicated with a 14-year-old girl after giving her a mobile phone and met up with her in a park has been jailed for 21 months.

Sentencing Daniel Stacey at Ipswich Crown Court, Judge Emma Peters said he’d met up with the schoolgirl six times over a two week period in September last year.

She said Stacey had previous convictions for making indecent images and it was clear that he had a sexual interest in young children which was “deeply troubling”.

Judge Peters accepted his physical contact with the victim was restricted to holding her hand and attempting to kiss and hug her.

However, she said Stacey had told the girl he loved her which was “deeply inappropriate” in view of the fact she was 14 and he was 40.

Judge Peters said Stacey had given the girl a mobile phone which she used to contact him and he gad also given her a computer game.

The police were contacted after her mother discovered the phone and Stacey had gone to the family phone and asked the girl’s mother to give him back the device and not to contact the police.

Stacey, of Sproughton Court, Ipswich, admitted meeting a child following sexual grooming and breaching a sexual harm prevention order.

He was jailed for 21 months and banned from contacting the victim and her family indefinitely.

He was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for ten years and ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for the same period.

The court heard that Stacey, who was given a community order in 2008 for making indecent images of children, had been in custody for ten months which was the equivalent of a 20-month prison sentence.

Charles Myatt, for Stacey, said his client had some learning difficulties and was emotionally immature.

He said because of his emotional immaturity he was drawn to people chronologically younger than him and he wasn’t a predatory paedophile.