A PORTLAND man has been jailed for a total of 12 sex offences involving under age girls.

Connor John Charles Anstey, of Pound Piece, was sentenced at Dorchester Crown Court after admitted charges of sexual activity with a child and inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity and being convicted following a trial of eight further charges of sexual activity with a child, one of sexual assault of a child and arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence.

The court was told the 20-year-old was 17 at the time the offending started and the charges related to behaviour with three girls aged 13 to 14.

The jury in the trial had heard that Anstey had sexual intercourse with two of his young victims and had arranged to meet a third.

Anstey had contacted the girls using Facebook and BBM Messenger and prosecutor Tom Wilkins suggested “there was clear grooming behaviour” displayed.

Audrey Archer, mitigating, told the judge at the sentencing hearing: “Connor Anstey is terrified by the very real prospect that your honour will be sending him to prison this afternoon.

“He fully appreciates the seriousness of these offences.

“He does accept his wrongdoing and he does acknowledge that what he did was wrong.”

Ms Archer said that at the time of the offences Anstey had been an immature 17-year-old and he had since “grown up a lot”.

She added: “There is no real risk that he will find himself in a like position again.

“He knows he is not to have sexual relations with girls under the age of 16.”

Judge Peter Johnson told the defendant: “These 12 matters involved a series of offending against young girls.”

He added: “As far as you were concerned the age of the girls, and that’s all they were when you were having sexual activity with them, was just a number.”

Judge Johnson sentenced Anstey to a total of two years and three months in prison for the 12 offences.

He was also made subject to a sexual harm prevention order and placed on the sex offenders’ register for a period of 10 years.