November 02, 1992  Paedophile jailed for three years A lorry driver who stole the virginity of a 14-year-old girl and made her pregnant has been jailed for three years A relative of the girl shouted from the public gallery: ‘I hope you die there’, as Charles Spann, 52, was led to the cells. The jury cleared Spann of two rape charges but he admitted twice having unlawful sexual intercourse with her. Passing sentence, The Common Serjeant of London, Judge Robert Lymbery said: ‘This is as bad a case of breach of trust as one can imagine. ‘As friend of the family you should have protected the girl and guided her, even against herself. ‘You had sex with her without any protective devices. Not only did she lose her virginity she became pregnant and the trauma continues to this day. ‘Her adult life has been ruined as a result of these acts.’ The court heard that the girl took five showers a day during the four months she shamefully kept her pregnancy secret from her family. Her father moaned about the rising gas bill and the rest of the family complained they could not get into the bathroom, tragically unaware of the girl’s trauma. It was not until her fifteenth birthday party that the teenager accused father of three Spann of having raped her on two separate occasions. She then had to undergo the nightmare of an abortion. But Spann, who has not enjoyed an active sex life with his wife since she contracted arthritis, insisted that the sex was completely with consent.  On the first occasion he got in bed with the girl to keep her warm and she started stroking his leg, he told the jury.  ‘There was no doubt in my mind she knew what she was doing. She actually smiled as she was doing it,’ said said the 14 stone driver. ‘It went through my mind that it was not the first time for her. She was enjoying it,’ he claimed. Spann, of Haslemere Road, Leatherhead, said he now regretted the incidents. ‘But at the time I wasn’t thinking straight.’ On the second occasion he had started stroking the girl’s hair as she lay on the sofa. ‘She was pretending she was asleep and was smiling at the time,’ he said. The former soldier said he touched her breasts and ‘between the pair of us we took her pyjama bottoms off.’  He recalled: ‘She didn’t say no. If she had I would have stopped.’ After more than three hours deliberation the jury accepted his story and cleared him of raping the girl in December last year and January this year. The court heard he had convictions for assualt more than ten years ago, but has no convictions for sexual crimes. Spann hung his head in shame as his barrister Mr Nicholas Hamblin told of his ‘regret and distaste of what took place.’ ‘He does not like himself at all.’ Counsel said Spann had seen active service in Cyprus and had been an HGV driver for 34 years. ‘He is clearly a man who is not a threat to women in general,’ said Mr Hamblin. Grey haired Spann thanked the judge before he was led to the cells.