January 2015
Goole engineer groomed schoolgirl, 14, on Facebook
AN ENGINEER who groomed a 14-year-old girl after sending her hundreds of messages on Facebook has been jailed.
Richard Carroll, 38, fooled the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, into falling in love with him and invited her to his home for sex when he knew his hairdresser girlfriend was at work.
After a five-day trial at Hull Crown Court, he was convicted by a jury of engaging in sexual activity with a girl under the age of 16.
Sentencing Carroll, who runs his family central heating business in Goole, Judge David Tremberg told him: “You groomed the girl.
“In my judgment there was significant emotional harm.
“The offence was carefully planned.
“She was a schoolgirl and you knew it.”
Carroll, who was engaged to his girlfriend of five years at the time, met the teenager when she was just 13 years old and they quickly began flirting with one another.
He invited her to feel his muscles, telling her he was “not an old man” and told her how good looking he thought she was.
In court Carroll, of Fontayne Street, Goole, protested: “I did not touch, kiss or sexually touch her.”
However, he admitted contacting her on Facebook, where he saw pictures of her in school uniform and admitted his messages became “more risky” over time.
“As time went on the messages did get a bit more risky,” he said.
“She started saying, ‘I love you’.
“At first I said don’t be daft. Stupidly, I did say it back a couple of times.”
He allowed the teenager to get drunk on vodka and cola.
When she was 14 years old, Carroll deliberately took his partner to work after inviting the schoolgirl to his home for sex, asking her to wear “leather leggings”.
Giving evidence, the girl said she had told Carroll she was only 13 years old when they first met.
“I thought I totally loved him and would do anything for him,” she said.
“I did not tell my mum because she would go to the police.
“I did not want any adult to find out about it.”
Within three months of meeting, Carroll was sending the girl hundreds of Facebook messages and they had even discussed eloping.
“We got real close on Facebook,” said the girl.
“I messaged him but did not end with XXX in case someone saw it.
“In the morning, if I did not text, he would say I had told someone, then he would say, ‘I can’t talk to you, you are too young’.
“I would leave it for a few hours and message again and he would be fine.”
But in court, Carroll accused her of being a “fantasist”.
He said: “Fair enough, I should not have texted her with things I wanted to do to her but she has got into in her head things had gone on which had not.”
Defending, Edward Bindloss said Carroll’s family business, set up by his father, faced ruin as customers had already begun cancelling orders and he would never be able to work in Goole again.
He was sentenced to four and a half years in prison and given a sexual offences prevention order. He must sign the sex offenders register for life.
