A sexual predator, Steven Anthony Jennings, has been incarcerated once more for sexually assaulting a minor at a residence in Harrogate.
Steven Anthony Jennings, 52, was already serving a 15-year prison sentence for comparable acts against two additional girls.
Steven Anthony Jennings has now received an additional two years of incarceration for new offences that occurred before to the previous ones, which only became known lately after the victim reported them to the police over a decade later.
Daniel Penman, prosecuting at York Crown Court, stated that Steven Anthony Jennings, then in his early 30s, sexually attacked the girl on two occasions between 2005 and 2007.
The girl said she “froze” but such was her young age she didn’t think anything wrong had occurred at the time.
She didn’t report the matters at the time and Steven Anthony Jennings “got on with life as normal”.
“It took her until 2019 until she felt able to (tell) her partner about these offences and, through that, felt able to report this to police,” added Mr Penman.
Steven Anthony Jennings, who was living in Harrogate before the 15-year sentence at Teesside Crown Court in 2017, was questioned about the offences at Moorlands Prison in Doncaster in May last year when he was coming to the end of his existing jail term.
He initially denied the allegations but ultimately admitted two counts of sexual assaulting a child under 13 years of age.
A third allegation was dropped by the prosecution and allowed to lie on court file.
Steven Anthony Jennings appeared for sentence today (April 6) knowing a consecutive jail sentence was all but inevitable.
In a statement read out in court, the victim said Steven Anthony Jennings’s “cruel” offences had affected her “mentally, physically and emotionally for years”.
She said her self-esteem and mental health were so badly affected that by her mid-teens she was “ready to die”.
She said she used to “cry myself to sleep every night” following the abuse and that she had “lost all innocence”.
Steven Anthony Jennings was jailed in October 2017 for the offences against the two other girls, which occurred between about 2008 and 2011.
The hefty sentence was imposed after Steven Anthony Jennings admitting rape and sexual activity with a child in relation to one of the victims and one count of indecent assault against the other girl.
The victims were two under-age teen girls, who were abused by Steven Anthony Jennings when he was in his mid-to-late 30s.
He sexually assaulted one of the girls in the outdoors while he was in a relationship with a woman, said Mr Penman.
Steven Anthony Jennings plied the other victim with alcopops and played games “like truth or dare” with her.
Steven Anthony Jennings ultimately raped the girl, who was too young to consent to sex, on “numerous” occasions”.
Defence barrister Hussain Rukhshanda said Jennings was remorseful for his actions.
Judge Simon Hickey said the sexual abuse of the new victim had had a “horrendous” effect on her and that her impact statement made for “sobering reading”.
He told Steven Anthony Jennings: “She said that’s a burden she carried from a young age due to your selfish actions”.
Steven Anthony Jennings was jailed for two years and placed on the sex-offenders’ register for a further 10 years.
Steven Anthony Jennings was also made subject to a sexual-harm prevention order, which will run for an indefinite period, to limit his contact with under-age girls.
It also bans him from contacting any of the three victims.
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