ABUSE of a girl by a Coventry paedophile was discovered after a worried teenager confided in a neighbour about inappropriate messages she had been receiving.
And a judge at Warwick Crown Court praised the actions of the neighbour as he jailed abuser David Ogilvie for a total of four years and eight months.
Ogilvie had denied sexual communication with a child and seven charges of sexual assault, but changed his pleas to guilty on the second day of his trial.
He later tried to go back on those admissions, but following a hearing earlier this month Judge Peter Cooke rejected an application for him to be allowed to vacate his guilty pleas.
Jailing Ogilvie (49) of March Way, Ernsford Grange, Coventry, after an adjournment for a pre-sentence report, Judge Cooke also ordered him to register as a sex offender for life.
Prosecutor Tom Kenning said the offences came to light in May 2017 after a 14-year-old girl showed a neighbour some worrying texts she had been receiving from Ogilvie.
The neighbour, a young married woman, immediately became concerned about the nature of the messages, which had what Mr Kenning described as ‘an air of grooming about them.’
In the messages Ogilvie talked about her clothing, having seen her around, told her he would be ‘out of the shower in 10 if you’re bored,’ and tried to persuade her to skip ‘prison’ (school) to meet him in a park.
The neighbour alerted the police who contacted the girl’s school, and during the investigation which followed another girl revealed that she had been sexually assaulted by Ogilvie.
She told the police how, when she was 10 or 11, Ogilvie had kissed her, putting his tongue in her mouth, and got her to sit on him and, holding her hips, had rubbed himself against her.
On another occasion he had seen her at a hotel for a wedding they had both attended, and had gone into a room where he had again put her on top of him and rubbed himself against her.
There were other similar incidents, including ones when she had gone to his home when she was 12.
And he had warned her not to say anything – or she would get into trouble and he would go to prison and his own daughter would grow up without a father.
Ogilvie was arrested at Birmingham airport as he returned from a holiday in June 2017.
He accepted sending texts to the first girl, but claimed there was nothing sexual about them, and that he may have cuddled the other girl, but that there was nothing of a sexual nature.
But the police examined his electronic devices and found many images of the second girl he had found on social media sites, including some of her in bikinis, copying them to his own devices.
There were also pictures he had taken surreptitiously of the first girl when he had seen her out playing, which Mr Kenning said were ‘of themselves somewhat innocuous,’ but had been taken for Ogilvie’s gratification.
Andrew Wilkins, defending, said that the communication offence on its own would not have led to an immediate prison sentence, and suggested that could therefore be dealt with by a concurrent sentence.
But Judge Cooke imposed a five-month sentence for that offence – consecutive to four years and three months for the offences against the other girl.
He told Ogilvie: “You are before me for serious offences which have blighted the lives of two young people.
“These matters came to light when [the first girl], troubled and not knowing what to make of texts she had been receiving from you, showed them to her neighbour, to whom we should all be grateful.
“The language of those texts was clearly and obviously flirtatious. It is clear to me that what you were about was grooming her with a view to sexual activity.
“That neighbour did precisely the right thing, and that led to an investigation. It was in that context [the other girl] revealed she had been subjected to sexual assaults at your hands.”
