A WORCESTER teenager who had sex with a 14-year-old schoolgirl he met through an internet chatroom has been spared a custodial sentence.

The victim’s mother became suspicious about on-line contact and alerted Durham police who revealed the girl’s age to 19-year-old Stephen Giles in a warning phone call.

But he ignored it and slept with her at his parents’ house in Mersey Road, Ronkswood, after she travelled by train from her home in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Prosecutor Charles Hamer said they had sex after some of the girl’s friends were “brought into a plot” to make her mother believe she was at “a slumber party” in her own city.

The girl had breakfast with Giles’ family before going home and obtaining a morning-after pill from a doctor.

Joe Kieran, defending, said Giles was of less than average IQ and a psychologist’s report concluded his emotional maturity was “several years younger” than his real age.

He dismissed a report by the probation service which assessed Giles as posing a “high risk” of committing further sexual offences.

Mr Kieran said he had shown genuine regret and commented: “I feel disgusted with myself. I’m truly in the wrong. My conscience is catching up with me.”

He added that the girl was intelligent, mature beyond her years and had confessed to police: “I sort of forced him. I kept on being persistent.”

Giles, now 20, was given a three-year community order and told to attend a sex offender programme.

He was also given a Sexual Offences Protection Order forbidding contact with girls under 16 and must sign the sex offenders’ continued on page 2 register for five years.

Judge Amjad Nawaz said: “There was no evidence of coercion. She was a willing party to what took place.”

Although the normal sentence was custody, in these “peculiar circumstances” the public would be better protected by Giles’ rehabilitation.

The judge said if Giles had been locked up, he would not have had enough time inside to finish a sex offenders’ course.

At Worcester Crown Court, unemployed Giles pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child, sexual grooming and abduction.

The child’s mother called in police in December last year but webcam contact continued and included conversations of a sexual nature, said Mr Hamer.

The girl told Giles’ parents she was 16 and they allowed her to stay in their son’s bedroom overnight on January 17 this year.

Giles, who had no previous convictions, was often on social networking sites like Facebook and My Space, said Mr Kieran.

When police told him to back off, Giles tried to block computer links but the girl renewed contact and developed a crush on him.

Mr Kieran claimed Giles was eager to please the girl after a previous failed romance. He now had a relationship with an 18-year-old woman.