A YOUNG Rugby man took a 13-year-old girl’s virginity after taking her back to his home while he was already on bail for having sex with another under-age girl.
Reece Checkley denied charges of sexual activity with a child, claiming the girl had told him she was at college which had led him to assume she was 17.
But a jury at Warwick Crown Court did not believe him and found him guilty of two charges of sexual activity with the girl at his home in October 2013.
The case was adjourned for a pre-sentence report to be prepared, and 22 year-old Checkley, of Wentworth Road, who was cleared of sexual activity with her on an earlier occasion, was granted bail.
Prosecutor Siobhan Collins said that Checkley, who was 20 at the time, began talking to the girl after seeing her at a social club in Rugby.
They then went back to his home where there was sexual activity between them which ended with them having sex.
But after he then bragged to a friend of hers, the friend told the girl’s father.
Checkley was arrested, but answered ‘no comment’ when the police asked him whether he had sex with the girl and whether he knew she was only 13.
Miss Collins pointed out at the time Checkley was on bail awaiting trial over his sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl the previous year.
In fact he was eventually cleared of sexual activity with that girl after a jury accepted he was not aware of her age when he had sex with her.
But he was convicted of a further charge of inciting her in a series of text messages to engage in sexual activity after the girl’s mother had left him in no doubt that she was only 14 – for which he was given a three-year community sentence and ordered to take part in a sex offenders’ programme.
Giving evidence, Checkley said he had not met the girl before taking his little brothers to a social club and began talking to her when he saw her sitting on a step smoking a cigarette.
“I asked if she wanted to go and chill at my house. I asked her what she did, and she said she went to college. I talked about a few things about my friends, and she told me a few things about her friends.”
Asked by his barrister John Brotherton whether he had specifically asked the girl her age, Checkley said no because she had said she went to college and he assumed she was at least 17 as a result.
