A JURY has found a young man guilty of having sex with an underage girl and sending sexual messages to two others.
Matthew White, of Rochford Gardens, Bicester, was on trial at Oxford Crown Court charged with six counts of child sexual offences dating back to 2019.
The 26-year-old denied the offences, telling police that though he had messaged and met with one of the girls, nothing sexual had taken place.
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However, he was found guilty by a jury on Thursday (June 6) and will now be sentenced at the same court on July 22.
During the trial, the Crown Prosecution Service stated that White had a sexual interest in teenage girls and was ‘predatory’ in seeking them out on Facebook.
The victims in the case were all 15 years old.
The prosecuting barrister said: “It began on Facebook and once communication was established it sometimes switched to another platform such as Snapchat or Instagram as it processed to meeting them and sometimes engaging in sexual activity with them.
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“It’s called grooming. There is no suggestion that Mr White thought they were older. They told him when they were communicating how old they were.”
One victim, who White had had consensual sex with, said ‘something about him isn’t right’ when giving evidence to the police.
“I was confused,” she said. “My gut feeling was that it's wrong.”
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