May 2012 Air cadet leader jailed for sex with 15-year-old girl A teenage air cadet leader who slept with a girl of 15 has been jailed for two years after he dumped her and she reported him to police. Apprentice electrician Alexander Bliszko, 20, who had hoped to join the RAF, was convicted of three counts of sexual activity with a child last month, following a trial. A jury cleared him of charges in relation to another girl aged 14. Bliszko, of Afonfab Crescent, Pontypridd admitted a relationship lasting several months with the 15-year-old but said he thought she was older. He would have been 19 at the time and prosecutor Claire Wilks said although she had been a willing partner, it was against the law. He has since been expelled from the air cadet movement where at the time he was the most senior cadet in his squadron, with ambitions to make service life his career. Cardiff Crown Court heard he was also training to be an electrician and would have been sitting an examination if he had not been in the dock. The jury had heard how Bliszko ended the relationship with his young girlfriend following the death of his close friend. He admitted they had started sleeping together after he accompanied her to a family planning clinic, but said when he first asked her out it had been on her birthday, and he thought it was her 16th. He claimed he didn’t find out her true age until they broke up, and denied ever lying to her family by saying he was younger. “I assumed her parents thought I was quite old, but I didn’t specifically state my age,” he said. Sending him to a Young Offenders’ Institution, Recorder Paul Hopkins QC said the law had to sometimes protect young people from themselves. He told Bliszko: “I take the view that the jury must have doubts about your state of mind at the start of the relationship, and that you became aware of her age during the course of the relationship and continued to have repeated sexual intercourse with her.” He added: “I accept it was a loving relationship and that she was distraught when it finished and was anxious for it to resume. “In many ways these laws are there to protect people from themselves and her lack of maturity following the end of the relationship was evident,” he said. He also accepted Blisko was conscientious and industrious and losing the air cadets in his life had caused him great distress, but said there had to be a jail sentence. His name will be on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.