TV show spiked after schoolgirl sex jail sentence
TV CHIEFS have scrapped episodes of hotel show Four in a Bed after a contestant was jailed for having sex with a 15-year-old schoolgirl in one of his own hotel bedrooms.
Hotelier Nathan Pearce, 25, claimed he thought she was over 16 – but the girl told police she was underage “by six or seven weeks” at the time of their illegal encounters.
Pearce, manager of the King’s Head hotel in Llandovery, was jailed for 30 months.
He featured in Channel 4’s popular daytime guide to hotels – where four different hotel owners rate each other – in May last year.
But the court heard he had sex with the teenager in his own fourstar hotel, and begged her to do a striptease on camera.
Channel 4 chiefs scrapped plans to repeat the series and removed the episodes from their catch up iPlayer after being told of his conviction.
Swansea Crown Court heard Pearce boasted he could disable the CCTV cameras at the hotel.
The girl told the court: “He wanted me to do a striptease but I refused.”
Pearce accepted he knew she was a schoolgirl, but thought she was over 16 and in a sixth form or a college.
He agreed she had been in his room at the hotel but said all they did was sit on a bed and watch television.
He then put £100 in the girl’s pocket even though she said she hadn’t wanted any money from him.
Pearce, who lives at the hotel, was found guilty of three offences of sexual activity with a child and possessing 13 indecent images of children.
The court heard the images, found on a storage device within a computer, appeared to be from “a professional shoot” of a girl aged between nine and 11.
Recorder Ifan Wyn Jones said: “The sad feature of this case is that you have shown no remorse whatsoever.
“You are a man who sees nothing wrong in the sexual exploitation of children.
“In my judgement the difference in ages between you and her is significant.
“It is clear to me that your interest in the girl was at least partly because she was in fact 15.
“These were repeated offences committed three times. This is not a case where one isolated offence was committed.
“Sexual intercourse took place on all three occasions. On the first occasion you gave her £100 in cash. That in itself is an aggravating feature.”
Pearce was also made subject to a sexual harm prevention order.
The Four in a Bed series is often repeated – but Channel 4 chiefs pledged the episode with Pearce will never be screened again.
A Channel 4 spokeswoman said: “The episodes featuring this man will not be shown again in the light of the criminal conviction.”