A Highbridge man has been jailed for having sex with a 15-year-old girl he met using a mobile phone text messaging service.
The matter only came to light when the girl visited Brian O’Sullivan, 23, of Vardy Court, last year and missed her train home to Wales, a court was told on Friday.
She was forced to call her mother who came and picked her up from the local police station and officers were told she had met O’Sullivan and had sex with him.
O’Sullivan was handed an 18-month prison sentence, ordered to sign the sexual offenders register for 10 years, and sign a sexual offences prevention order for five years, having previously admitted to a charge of sexual activity with a child.
The court heard that O’Sullivan, who plays football locally, used a mobile phone social networking website to exchange a series of sexually explicit messages with the girl.
Patrick Mason, defending, said O’Sullivan had never been in trouble before, and the girl did not want to prosecute him.
He added that he is a young, single man who made a “massive error of judgement” and accepted responsibility for what he had done.
