A man preyed on a teenage girl while pretending to be helping her study for her GCSE's.
Daniel Cooper, of Canford Close in Great Sankey, Warrington, engaged in sexual acts with a 15-year-old girl when he was in his early 20s. He began messaging her and sent her an unsolicited video of him performing a sex act on himself.
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He then continued to flirt with her over a number of months and encouraged her into a sexual acts.
He appeared at Liverpool Crown Court today, where he pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual activity with a child and one count of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.
Prosecutor Trevor Parry-Jones told the court how the victim, now in her 20s, had at the time "never even spoken to a boy" when Cooper began messaging her and asked her to send him pictures of herself.
He said: "Flirtations continued and when the defendant was at her home address he asked her to meet him in the bathroom. Despite feeling nervous, she felt she knew what was going to happen. Thinking she was about to have her first kiss, she agreed to meet him."
Cooper, now 29, asked the victim to join him in the bathroom on several occasions, during which sexual acts occurred.
Mr Parry-Jones added: "The defendant was often at her home and would sit at the table under the guise of helping (the victim) study for her exams while touching her leg or private parts. She went along with this, thinking it was normal."
In a statement, she told the court she had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety in 2018, and had to attend counselling with a therapist.
She said: "The whole time I was in the counselling process I felt like I was in a bubble. I couldn't even begin to explain how it felt. The stress of holding in the secret of what happend with me and Daniel led to an incident when I went to a railway bridge with the intention of ending my life."
She said she felt she had to say "yes" to sex acts whether she wanted to do them or not. She said: "He was so manipulative to me and made me feel I had to change the way I acted or dressed to suit him... I completely conformed to what he wanted."
She also suffered from panic attacks, and sometimes found herself "overcome with guilt, anxiety and anger".
Carmel Wilde, defending, said: "The defendant was a much younger man back then at 21. He's 29 now; a man of previous good character."
Adding that Cooper had been in employment for six years and had no other convictions, she said: "He's a man who over the last eight years has contributed towards society and he's bettered himself."
Judge Brian Cummings sentenced Cooper to two years and three months in prison.
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