August 2004 TEENAGE ABUSER AVOIDS PRISON A TEENAGE babysitter who sexually abused a nine-year-old girl escaped jail after the mother of his victim made a plea for leniency. Nineteen-year-old Sam Ingrey was handed two years probation, 180 hours community service and ordered to attend a sex offender programme for a series of indecent assaults on the youngster four years ago. In a letter to the judge at Cambridge Crown Court, the child’s mother outlined her anger, but urged mercy because of Ingrey’s “genuine remorse” for what he had done. Ingrey, of New Road, Guilden Morden, near Royston, was 15 when he carried out sex acts on the girl as he babysat while her parents were out. The girl disclosed what happened only recently when she became a victim of bullying at school, reminding her of feelings experienced while being sexually abused four years earlier. Jason Coulter, mitigating, said while it was clear the offences were serious, they were carried out when the teenager was undergoing the pressures of adolescence and was sexually inexperienced and immature. He added: “While it does not lessen the impact to the victim, we are now dealing with a 19- year-old who has deep shame and remorse and gives a total assurance that nothing like this will ever happen again.” Sentencing Ingrey, who admitted all charges, Judge Jonathan Haworth said he was impressed by letters in his support, particularly from the child’s mother. “The crucial question is what the motivation was for your offending. From the probation report and letters I have received it is clear the offences were the product of your sexual inexperience and immaturity,” he said. “Time has moved on a long way since then and in all other respects you are an admirable young man. Quite literally you are a different young man to the one who committed these offences.” But, he added, none of his observations minimised the gravity of what Ingrey had done.