In 2019, Liam Stanley Hunter, then aged 25, of no fixed address, was sentenced to three years and six months’ imprisonment (42 months) at York Crown Court after engaging in sexual activity with a vulnerable 15-year-old girl.
The conviction followed an investigation by North Yorkshire Police into persistent grooming and sexual exploitation.
The court heard that the victim had been identified by social workers as vulnerable to sexual exploitation when she was 12 or 13 years old, and had established contact with Hunter through Facebook.
The girl went missing from her North Yorkshire home for four days before Northumbria Police officers located her with Hunter in South Shields.
Officers explicitly informed Hunter of her real age and warned him to end all contact.
Hunter deliberately ignored the police warning and continued communicating with the child.
During the summer, Hunter used a false name to gain entry to the girl’s family home, staying at the address and engaging in sexual activity with her.
When the girl’s parents uncovered his real name, they placed him in a vehicle and drove him directly to a police station.
Prosecutor Nick Adlington revealed that during the journey, Hunter sent a text message to the teenager stating: “Say I had nowhere to go and you told me you turned 16 in April get washed and wash yourself.”
Upon searching Hunter, officers recovered Viagra tablets, and subsequent forensic analysis established a DNA match proving sexual intercourse had taken place.
While released on police bail, the child went missing again; her father intervened and located the pair together at a local bus station.
Hunter entered guilty pleas to:
- Two counts of sexual activity with a child
- One count of meeting a child following sexual grooming
The Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, noted that Hunter’s offending was persistent and that the father’s intervention at the bus station prevented further harm.
The judge handed down a custodial sentence of three and a half years’ imprisonment, imposed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) for six years, and ordered Hunter onto the Sex Offenders Register for life.
Release Calculation: Under UK sentencing legislation governing sexual offences, Hunter was required to serve two-thirds (28 months / 2 years and 4 months) of his 42-month sentence in prison custody before becoming eligible for statutory release on licence, serving the remaining 14 months under community supervision.
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