A CITY man who took part in sex acts in a park and at his brother’s home with an under-age girl he had met through an internet chatroom ten years ago has finally been jailed.
Michael Connor had even sent the girl a sex toy for her to use while he watched her over the internet before meeting her, a jury at Warwick Crown Court has heard.
Connor (41) of Wyken Way, Coventry, pleaded not guilty to seven charges of inciting the girl to engage in sexual activity and four charges of sexual activity with a child.
Prosecutor Matthew Barnes explained that the first seven charges related to acts Connor had got the girl to perform in front of her computer while he watched, while the other charges reflected acts which took place between them after they met up.
Connor said that during their internet activity he had believed the girl to be 17 – which was accepted by the jury who found him not guilty of those charges.
But they rejected his claims that no sexual acts had taken place between them after they met and he realised she was younger than he claimed she had told him.
And Connor was jailed for six years after the jury found him guilty of all four charges of sexual activity with the girl knowing she was under-age.
Mr Barnes said Connor had met the girl in around 2006 through an internet chatroom when he was 32 and, it was alleged, she had told him she was only 15.
As their online friendship developed, he began to ask her to perform sexual acts while he watched over the internet.
They eventually met, with the girl travelling to Coventry from her home in Nuneaton and going to his brother’s house where they drank wine before going to a bedroom where they engaged in sexual activity.
Connor stopped, saying it was not the right time because she was drunk.
They met again in Riversley Park, Nuneaton, where they were again involved in sexual activity.
Mr Barnes said the police had first become involved back in 2006 after the girl’s mother found the toy Connor had sent her and a pornographic DVD in her room.
As a result her phone was examined, and was found to have indecent pictures of her on it, as well as some texts which had been sent by Connor.
When she was interviewed at the time, she made no mention of Connor, and ‘explained to the police that she was at an age where she wanted to have that sort of contact with boys,’ and had been in phone contact with some boys, said Mr Barnes.
But two years ago she confided in her boyfriend, telling him some of what had happened between her and Connor, and the police were contacted and she was re-interviewed.
In her interview, which was played to the jury before she gave evidence in court, she said she had not spoken about him in the 2006 interview because she was not allowed to.
Asked by Mr Barnes what she had meant by that, she told the jury: “Mick said I was not allowed to say anything because me and him would get into a lot of trouble about it.”
When he was finally arrested Connor agreed sending texts and messages to her via the chatroom, but said he believed her to be 17 at the time, and only realised she was under 16 when they actually met.
Connor accepted that when they did meet, he thought she looked young – and he claimed that although they went back to his brother’s home, apart from hugging and kissing, there was no sexual activity between them.
Jailing Connor, Recorder Adrian Redgrave QC also ordered him to register as a sex offender for life and made him subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for ten years.
