November 2013

Facebook pervert jailed for blackmailing girls into sex

PERVERT Carl Renshaw has been jailed after he blackmailed three schoolgirls into satisfying his sexual demands.

The 23-year-old met two of his victims on the internet and formed relationships with them.

But he threatened to circulate pictures of the girls scantily dressed if they did not do as he asked.

Now Renshaw has been locked up for four years.

Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court yesterday heard Renshaw met one victim on the internet when she was 15 and eventually persuaded her to meet him. They met at a bus stop and Renshaw offered her some cannabis. He led her round the back of the bus stop, away from her friends, and hugged her. The teenager felt uncomfortable and decided to go home.

But the pair continued to chat online and the messages developed a sexual tone.

Renshaw asked the girl for photographs of herself. She eventually sent a picture of herself wearing a bra and pyjama bottoms.

The defendant became aggressive when the relationship ended.

Prosecutor Gerard Quirke said: “He threatened to spread the picture of her if she stopped going with him. He threatened to put it on Facebook and said he might send it to her father.”

Renshaw developed a relationship with a 14-year-old girl when he was 20 and soon started to make sexual demands of her.

Mr Quirke said Renshaw would regularly have sexual activity with the schoolgirl. The defendant was verbally and physically intimidating. He would frighten her and made demands for sex.

He added: “He took photographs of the girl and kept them on his computer and used those to blackmail her. If she refused to comply with his requests he said he was going to show the photos to other people and tell her parents. He was controlling and manipulative.”

Renshaw had full sex with the third complainant who he met through a random Facebook request. The 15-year-old ‘felt compelled’, when asked, to send him photographs of herself in her underwear. The relationship ended but they met up again eight months later after Renshaw contacted her on Facebook. They later had full, unprotected sex. But Renshaw dumped the girl the next day.

The defendant’s laptop was seized on his arrest and was found to contain indecent images of girls.

Renshaw, of Cherry Hill, Madeley, pleaded guilty to four charges of sexual activity with a child; three offences of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity; and possessing indecent photographs of a child.

Joanne Wallbanks, mitigating, said Renshaw had been ‘incredibly stupid’.

She said: “He made those threats, which were inevitably going to result in somebody taking umbrage with him.”

Judge David Fletcher jailed Renshaw for four years and made him the subject of an indefinite sexual offences prevention order.

He said: “You knew what you was doing was morally and legally wrong and you were committing serious sexual offences.”