A FORMER youth club worker who tried to persuade a schoolgirl to have sex with him has been sent on a course to help him find a partner his own age. Adam Douglas, 19, met the girl at an East Riding youth club where he worked and began contacting her through Facebook and text messages.
After she had rejected one request to have sex with him in a particular way, he replied: "Please, please, let me. Come on, try new things."
Douglas initially denied inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and other offences and stood trial in January, but the jury was discharged after being unable to decide whether he was guilty or not.
He later admitted the incitement charge and was sentenced to a three-year supervised community order, which requires him to attend the Northumbria Sex Offenders Group Programme.
Douglas, of Maister Cottages, High Street, Easington, must also sign the Sex Offenders' Register for five years.
Sentencing Douglas at Hull Crown Court yesterday, Judge Mark Bury told him: "You are a young man who lives at home, you have the support of your parents and you are, for the most part, a well-adjusted young man.
"You have a job and you have held a job for some time now.
"The only flaw in your personality, it may be, is your inability to form intimate relationships with people of your own age, and that's what's going to be looked at by the programme requirement I'm about to impose."
The judge said the order would teach him what he should do to try to form relationships, and "more importantly", what he should not.
But Judge Bury warned Douglas: "Don't by any means think you have been let off, because you haven't.
"If you breach any of those orders then you will be in breach and that will mean custody, because I'm going to reserve any breaches of those orders to myself and I know what I'm minded to do should I see you in the dock again.
"This is a chance you are getting and it's your last chance."
The court heard Douglas was 18 at the time of the offence, while the girl was "nearer 15 than 16".
One night, at about 1am while her parents were in bed, he sent the girl a message asking her to go on her webcam, which she did.
Douglas appeared on the screen covered by a quilt and said he was going to take it off because he was hot.
The girl thought he would be wearing boxer shorts, but he was naked and exposing himself when he took the duvet off.
Judge Bury said he had encouraged the girl to go on the webcam to see him naked.
He told Douglas: "You denied it, but that's the basis of the prosecution and that's the basis I'm going to sentence you on."
He said Douglas had been aware of the girl's age when he committed the offence.
"She was nearer 15 than 16 and you were aware of that and she felt your behaviour was upsetting enough to make a formal complaint when she had the option of not doing," he said.
At his trial, Douglas denied sending the messages and claimed his friends had been using his Facebook account. Two other charges of sexual activity with a child, relating to a different girl, were ordered to remain on file.
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