A PAEDOPHILE who groomed a pre-school girl with sweets and gifts before sexually abusing her in a charity shop has had his jail sentenced reduced.

Shaun Mezzone took the young child into a back room of the Sobell House Hospice shop and took illicit photographs of her.

When he was caught the 47-year-old of Leiden Road, Oxford, was also found to have hundreds of illegal images depicting the abuse of children.

Mezzone had already admitted counts including sexual assault and making indecent images of children when he was sentenced at Oxford Crown Court on July 1 last year.

Outlining the case at the time, prosecutor Sandra Beck said the first offence took place while Mezzone was working at the Sobell House charity shop in Kidlington in May 2019.

There, he took a young child - who cannot be named for legal reasons - to a back room where he took naked images of her.

In August 2019, he targeted the same child who he carried off before taking more indecent images of her and sexually assaulting her.

Prosecutors said he ‘gave her money and a present for doing it.’

He was arrested and officers went on to discover a haul of indecent images of child sexual abuse on a mobile phone and a laptop.

In total he had 32 category A, 58 category B and 341 category C indecent images of children.

In mitigation defence barrister Peter Du Feu called his client a ‘sad individual’ who had ‘let himself down.’

He said: “His response to this is shame, embarrassment, huge remorse.”

Sentencing, Judge Maria Lamb jailed Mezzone for a total of five years and said he will sign the sex offenders register for life.

But on Wednesday last week, at the Court of Appeal, Lady Justice Macur, Mr Justice Lavender and Sir Alan Wilkie granted his request and reduced his jail time to four years.