Riding instructor’s child sex cover-up
Teenage victim’s mother finds naked photos
A pervert went to great technical lengths to cover up having underage sex with a teenage girl, a court heard.
Philip Bray set up both their mobile phones so he could remotely delete incriminating material such as nude photos if discovered.
But the 37-year-old horse riding instructor’s sordid secret was revealed after the girl’s mother became suspicious and saw some of the photos on her phone.
Now, Bray, of White Hill Road, Detling, has been jailed for just under five years after admitting six offences of sexual activity with a child, one of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and one of taking indecent photos of a child. Maidstone Crown Court was told how Bray, then 36, had sex with the 15-year-old girl.
Prosecutor Peter Forbes said the teenager’s mother began to notice changes in her behaviour.
“Her mother saw a naked picture of her daughter, which she had taken and sent,” said Mr Forbes. “She confronted her and she broke down. Her iPhone was being remotely wiped. Her mother found a private message disguised as a news feed. The defendant had remote access to her device.
“He was in the process of deleting messages via his phone. It was evident he knew he had been discovered.”
When interviewed, the victim revealed she had sex with Bray at a hotel, at his then home in Gillingham and in his car.
Jailing Bray, for four years and eight months, Judge David Griffith-Jones QC said Bray, who has sought counselling from a specialist in sexual offending, took the girl’s virginity and the relationship seemed to become “all-consuming”.
Bray’s name will appear indefinitely on the sex offenders’ register and he will be barred from working with children under 16 and vulnerable adults.