Lawrence Shawcross, who was 20 at the time of his hearing, was jailed for 21 months by Liverpool Crown Court. A text-book chatroom bob, he was found guilty of two counts of engaging in sexual activity with a child.
The court was told how the girl, whose name cannot be given for legal reasons, received numerous text messages from Shawcross which her mother found “worrying”. Charles Lander, prosecuting, spoke of how Shawcroft had sex with the girl the day after he turned 19 a year earlier, following getting to know her through a friend when he was 18.
Lander said her concerned mum went to police following her discovery, and while they arrested him it took a year to bring Shawcross to justice. No complaint was reported being made to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Sawcross’s attorney, Frank Dillon, defending, said Shawcross admitted to offencess that “carry a particular stain that will ring down the decades” with him. Shawcross had a “disruptive and unhappy childhood,” he said, and had found it “difficult to engage with society in a normal way“. Mr Dillon described the defendant and the girl as “affectionate” and said this was not a case where the girl had been forced into sex against her will.
Following Shawcross pleading guilty to two counts of engaging in sexual activity with a child, Judge Phipps ordered him to be detained for 21 months in a Young Offenders Institute and sign the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years.
