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14
Oct
Harrogate man admits having sex with under-age girl
A Harrogate man has admitted a slew of child sex offences including meeting an under-age girl for sex.
Lewis Grice-Meadows, 19, admitted five separate offences, including having sex with the girl, when he appeared at York Crown Court yesterday (October 13).
Grice-Meadows, of Mayfield Grove, pleaded guilty to engaging in penetrative sexual activity with a child between November and December last year.
He also admitted meeting the girl with the intention to commit a sexual offence following sexual grooming on at least two occasions.
He further admitted three counts of making indecent photographs of the girl. The three charges relate to category A, B and C photos and videos - category A content being the most extreme.
The offences occurred in November and December last year.
He denied a further allegation of voyeurism, or recording the girl doing an act.
Prosecutor Matthew Moore-Taylor said the Crown accepted this plea and would be offering no evidence on this allegation.
Grice-Meadows’ barrister Andrew Stranex asked for sentence to be adjourned for psychological and probation reports as there were “very complex issues in the background” and his client had never been in trouble before.
The court heard that Grice-Meadows and the girl, who lives in a different part of the country, met online and she travelled to meet him “on a number of occasions”.
Mr Stranex said that Grice-Meadows had endured a difficult childhood, during which he moved to Australia where he felt isolated.
“When he got to finishing school, he wasn’t able to stay in Australia because of visa issues, so his grandmother arranged for him to come back to this country,” added Mr Stranex.
Grice-Meadows, who works in a supermarket warehouse, ended up living in a room in a shared house in Harrogate.
Recorder Dafydd Enoch KC adjourned sentence to December 12 but warned Grice-Meadows that he could be facing a jail sentence of at least five years.
He added:
You have pleaded guilty to serious offences for which you are likely to go to prison.
He granted Grice-Meadows bail “despite my reservations” and with strict conditions that he had no unsupervised, advertent contact or communication with females under 16 years of age, lived and slept at his grandmother’s house and did not engage in any “undesirable” online behaviour.
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