Marcel Romanowski 28

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A sex offender who arranged to meet a schoolgirl he believed was 14 at a Southend Travelodge has been jailed for five years.

Marcel Romanowski, 28, travelled to the hotel in February 2025 after exchanging sexual photographs and graphic messages about taking her virginity. The girl, who was actually 13, fled the room after two minutes and staff called Essex Police.

Basildon Crown Court heard the pair had met on the adults-only dating app Badoo in January 2025 after she messaged him. In the days before the meeting, Romanowski searched online about the age of consent and what would happen if a 14-year-old became pregnant.

“You believed that she was 14 and you were making enthusiastic preparations to take her virginity,” Judge Samantha Cohen told him.

“Within a few messages, it was clear that the purpose for both you and her was to meet up for sex.”

Defence barrister Chris Martin said the case arose from “rather peculiar circumstances”, adding: “This was not Mr Romanowski scouring the internet… He was genuinely only using adult-only dating sites… In a nutshell, it was him that was singled out by the child and not the other way around.”

A trial earlier this year heard the girl had contacted multiple adult men on the app. After moving to WhatsApp, she told him she was 14 and under 18. “You were not deterred by her age,” the judge said. “You said that was okay and you immediately resumed your messaging with her.”

Their messages were “highly sexual” and they exchanged images. Romanowski forwarded one of the girl’s images to a friend — an offence of distributing an indecent image of a child for which he was not charged. “You demonstrated a callous disregard for her privacy and her dignity,” Judge Cohen said.

The judge noted he had messaged 159 adult women that week and was “completely obsessed with sex”. As he drove to Southend he watched pornography about virgins, but the girl was getting cold feet. CCTV from a fast-food restaurant showed her looking “obviously nervous and uncomfortable”.

Romanowski texted her to follow him outside so others would not see them together. “That is because you knew that what you were doing was both morally and legally wrong,” the judge said.

They were in the Travelodge room for only two minutes before she fled. She later accused him of sexual assault, but the jury failed to reach a verdict and prosecutors did not seek a retrial.

Romanowski, formerly of Cheney Road in Danbury, was convicted of sexual communication with a child, inciting a child to engage in a sexual act, meeting a child following sexual grooming and possession of cannabis.

He was sentenced to five years in prison, placed on the sex offenders register for life and made subject to a ten-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order restricting his internet use and contact with children.

Judge Cohen told him:

“You, Mr Romanowski, were the adult in this situation and you could and of course should have stopped what was happening, immediately reported her to Badoo and never gone to meet her.”