April 2001

Internet beast jailed for sex with girl

Mar 19 2001 By Brenda Hickman and Gary Willey, Evening Chronicle

A cyber sex beast assaulted a North East schoolgirl after an internet romance.

Married family man Andrew Mandefield struck up a computer friendship with the 15-year-old while she was babysitting for a woman friend.

But the internet chat led Mandefield, 30, to leave his home in Hastings, East Sussex, and travel to Tyneside to meet the youngster.

And he ended up having unlawful sex with the girl in her friend’s home in Whickham Gardens, Byker, Newcastle.

The girl had been babysitting for mum-of-two Angela Sisson, 32, who had separated from her husband at the time.

As the Chronicle revealed last month, Sisson had spent hours on her computer talking to another Hastings man, a friend of Mandefield’s.

The girl was also drawn into the cyber chat and both men travelled to Tyneside to visit Sisson and the girl.

Today the unemployed father-of-three started a nine-month prison term after admitting two charges of unlawful sexual intercourse and one of indecent assault on the girl on a two-day visit to Sisson’s home last November. He also admitted knowing beforehand that the girl was under age.

Sisson, who had earlier pleaded guilty to allowing a girl under 16 to have sexual intercourse on her premises, was remanded in custody for a further hearing to decide whether she encouraged the teenager to go into the bedroom with Mandefield then later asked for sordid details about their sex sessions.

The victim’s mother said she was furious that the case will now be dragged out further and that her daughter may have to give evidence in court.

The mother-of-five, of Walker, Newcastle, said: “I thought my daughter was safe babysitting at the house of a woman we’ve known for more than four years.

“I was furious when it came to light. I confronted Angela and she denied it.

“This man is disgusting and deserves to be locked away. Now we have to wait another month for a further hearing and my daughter will have to go through all this again.”

Web-surfing Sisson has been warned she also faces a prison sentence.

Computer buff Mandefield first let the child get drunk on a mix of potent drinks, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

Then, after kissing the teenager in the living room of Sisson’s home, he took her into a bedroom where they had full unprotected sex.

They had intercourse again the next night before Mandefield returned to the South with his male friend.

Jailing him for nine months and placing him on the Sex Offenders’ Register for 10 years, Mr Justice Henriques told Mandefield: “You were under no illusion when you were in the North East as to the girl’s age but you paid little attention to that.”