June 2013 Paedophile jailed for encouraging 13 year old girl to take part in sexual activities A SEX offender has been jailed for encouraging a 13-year-old girl to take part in sexual activities. Matthew Gareth Horrocks, 30, and the girl exchanged more than 2,000 text messages, most of them sexually explicit, and met her in a secluded place so he could carry out a sexual act with her, York Crown Court was told. His crimes were uncovered when police found the messages and he was arrested. Horrocks, of Viking Road, Acomb, pleaded guilty to inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and sexual activity with a child. He was jailed for two years and four months. He was also banned from working with children, put on the sex offenders’ register for life and given a sexual offences prevention order. The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, told him: “It is quite clear you were playing out a fantasy world in which you were encouraging her to take part in all sorts of activities. Some of the activity involved degrading things.” Horrocks had a “problem with his sexual life” and had made it clear to the girl that he wanted full sexual intercourse with her. For Horrocks, Colin Byrne said he was immature and didn’t appreciate the impact of his actions on the girl. He lived his social life on the internet rather than in the real world. Christopher Attwooll, for the prosecution, said the girl had advertised herself as 18 on an internet website. But soon after Horrocks contacted her, she revealed that she was really 13. July 2007 Court shame of taunting cyclist CYCLIST Matthew Gareth Horrocks has to pay for his habit of taunting women in New Earswick with sexy comments, York magistrates decided. Prosecutor Ann Darwin told them the 24-year-old man repeatedly unnerved young women by calling out to them when they were walking through the village in the dark. In particular, he accosted a 17-year-old woman so often that she feared to leave her home and his behaviour sent a 12-year-old back to her mother in tears. The younger girl was on her way to school at the time. He was usually on his bicycle. “In each and every case, we are dealing with females alone, mostly in the hours of darkness,” said Mrs Darwin. “It is quite clear everyone was unnerved by these comments. No one suggested they treated it as a joke or thought it was funny. They all reacted in very similar ways.” Horrocks, of Viking Road, Acomb, York, pleaded guilty to causing a public nuisance and harassing the 17-year-old. Both offences covered three months between October and January. Magistrates gave him a community order with six months’ supervision and ordered him to pay the 17-year-old £75 compensation and £60 prosecution costs. They also banned him from contacting the 17-year-old in any way for the next two years under a restraining order. Mrs Darwin said Horrocks’s taunts included: “Hi, sexy”, “Morning darling, blow me a kiss” and “Hi gorgeous, come here.” He accosted the women and girls by cycling round them or up behind them or cycling past them, often in the morning while it was still dark. He taunted a mother taking her children to primary school. By January 28, police had set a trap for him by mounting plainclothes patrols in the area and when the 17-year-old woman spotted him that day, she and her stepfather tracked him until he was arrested. He had affected her life and that of her mother so much, they reacted to his arrest with smiles and laughs. For Horrocks, Simon Nellar said the comments were his “chat-up” technique. “That was the top and bottom of it,” he said. “There were no threats made, no physical approach.” He had not realised at the time how the women viewed his behaviour and since his arrest had stopped. He had also voluntarily left the area to live with his parents in Acomb. There were only ten incidents involving five women or girls.