Man gave girls cash after raping them in car
Cleveland PoliceA "dreadful" paedophile who gave money to two young vulnerable teenage girls after he repeatedly raped them in his car has been jailed for 15 years.
Paul Black, 36, first met the victims, who were aged 13 and 14, online and went on to rape them on multiple occasions after driving them to an industrial estate, Teesside Crown Court heard.
The girls said they had been targeted for their vulnerability, while a judge said Black took advantage of the "impressionable young girls".
Black, from Springwell, near Washington, who had previous police cautions for flashing and sexual assault, admitted 28 offences including eight counts of child rape.
Black made contact with the 13-year-old victim on Snapchat and, despite her telling him her age, quickly arranged to pay her for sex, prosecutor Shaun Dodds said.
Posing as a 25-year-old man called James, Black would pick her up in his car and drive to an industrial estate on Teesside where he would rape her, the court heard, before calling her degrading names and giving her cash.
The painter decorator raped her three times and her 14-year-old friend five times, the court heard, with the girls saying he was "very pushy" and would ignore their requests to stop.
Indecent images
Black would make comments along the lines of he was "paying for it so they had to do it", the court heard.
He also got them to send sexual images of themselves to him, the court was told.
The offending came to light when one of the girls was found at school with a bundle of cash, which led to her telling teachers what had been happening, the court heard.
When he was arrested, police found dozens of indecent images of children on his phone including videos of young girls being raped, Dodds said.
He admitted to police he raped the girls and claimed he had given them more than £400.
Black also admitted requesting sexual images from 13-year-old girls online, the court heard.
In statements read to the court, the girls said they had been struggling to cope with the effects of Black's abuse.
One said she felt she had been "targeted" and "used" by him due to her "vulnerabilities", while the second said she would feel "safer" knowing he was in prison.
She said initially she thought she was to blame but now understood "none of it is my fault".
'You didn't care'
Black had no previous convictions but did have three police cautions all for sexual offences, Dodds said.
In 2005 he exposed himself to a female stranger, three years later he threatened to publish indecent images of a 16-year-old girl he met on social media and in 2014 he grabbed the buttocks of a woman as she jogged past him, the court heard.
Judge Richard Clews told Black those previous encounters with the law "obviously did not change anything in the way you lived your life".
He said Black made contact with the "two young impressionable girls" purely for his own sexual gratification, adding the rapist repeatedly "took advantage" of their vulnerability in a "quite dreadful way".
The judge said Black "enticed" and groomed the victims with money, telling him: "You didn't care quite frankly whether they consented or not, you were going to do what you wanted to do regardless."
His actions had had a "very considerable effect" on the girls, the judge added.
He ruled Black was a dangerous offender and ordered him to serve a further three years on extended licence upon his eventual release from prison.
Black must also sign the sex offender register for the rest of his life.
Speaking after sentencing, Det Con Sean Hobbs, from Cleveland Police, said Black was a "predator" who "used Snapchat to groom young girls solely for his own sexual gratification".
The officer praised the "courage" of the girls for speaking to police, adding their testimony had "gone a long way to ensure Black has no choice but to admit what he has done and secured a prison sentence".