Highbridge man jailed for sex with teen (From Burnham & Highbridge Weekly News)

Highbridge man jailed for sex with teen

5:30pm Wednesday 27th January 2010

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A HIGHBRIDGE footballer has been jailed for having sex with a 15-year-old girl he met on a text messaging service.

The matter only came to light when the girl visited Brian O'Sullivan, 23, of Vardy Court, last year and missed the train back to her home in Wales, Taunton Crown Court heard on Friday.

She was forced to call her mother who came and picked her up from the local police station and officers were told she had met O'Sullivan and had sex with him.

O'Sullivan was handed an 18-month prison sentence, ordered to sign the sexual offenders register for ten years, and sign a sexual offences prevention order for five years, having previously admitted to a charge of sexual activity with a child.

The court heard how O'Sullivan, who plays football locally and describes himself as a 'professional footballer', used the mobile phone-based social networking website to exchange a series of sexually explicit messages with the girl.

The pair then arranged to meet in Highbridge where they had consensual sex, despite O'Sullivan knowing the girl was 15 years old.

Patrick Mason, defending, said O'Sullivan had never been in trouble before, and the girl did not want to prosecute him.

Mr Mason also told the court how elements of the meeting had been instigated by the girl, who he described as “extremely mature”, and said she had not been badly affected by the incident.

He said O'Sullivan was a young, single man with desires who made a “massive error of judgement” and “behaved very badly” but had accepted responsibility for what he had done.

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