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York taxi driver gave underage girl money and alcohol
A TAXI driver left gifts of money and alcohol around the city for an underage girl while telling other men he was having sex with her, York Crown Court heard.
Matthew Knowles, 45, kept watch on the girl after finding her on Instagram and sent her messages, said Shannon Woodley, prosecuting.
He told her where to find amounts of £20 and £100 and on one occasion told her he liked the shorts she was wearing.
On another occasion, he told her where to find vodka and beer that he said she and her friends could drink in the park.
Twice he arranged for them to meet, once when he sold her a mobile phone for considerably less than its true value, and once when she was with a friend and he gave her £100 and some Lottery scratch cards.
He also posted her picture on the social media website Kik and had conversations with other men in which he described having sex with her and enjoying it.
He was also searching online for the definition of paedophilia and the age at which girls develop sexually.
He started sending messages to the girl's friend asking her why the girl was not responding to his messages. The friend's parents saw the messages on her phone and police were called.
Ms Woodley said that though none of the messages to the girl were sexual, Knowles was intending at some stage for the connection between them to become sexual.
Knowles, of Bellhouse Way, Foxwood, denied two charges of meeting a girl for sexual purposes but was convicted by a jury last August.
He pleaded guilty to having a single sexual image of a child of the lowest category.
His barrister Sean Smith said this had been sent to him via Kik by someone who appeared to be underage and he had responded by telling the sender to get off the website.
Knowles was given an 18-month prison sentence suspended for two years on condition he does a 90-session sex offender treatment programme, 30 days’ rehabilitative activities and 150 hours’ unpaid work.
He was put on the sex offenders' register and made subject to a sexual harm prevention order curbing his contact with underage girls and enabling police to monitor his online activities, and made subject to a restraining order banning him from contacting the girl. All three orders last for 10 years.
He told York Crown Court during his trial he is no longer a taxi driver and now has his own removals company.
Mr Smith said at the time of the offending Knowles had been going through a difficult time but had since moved on. There had been no offending of any kind since and he had no previous history of sexual offending.
The judge said Knowles had been having mental health difficulties at the time of the offending.
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