Dad told girl aged 15: I want to sleep with you
COMPANY BOSS, 36, SPARED JAIL AFTER SAYING HE’S ADDRESSING HIS ‘ISSUES’
A MANAGING director who runs an £8m technology firm has been ordered to get treatment on a sex offender programme after he was caught using Snapchat to target young girls.
Married father-of-two Austin Kitchen, 36, swapped explicit messages with three victims on the social media platform during which he posed as a 25-year-old man and showed off pictures of his luxury Tesla and BMW cars.
One impressionable girl of 15 was bombarded with compliments on a daily basis and showered with gifts by Kitchen who told her ‘you look really hot’ adding: “I want to sleep with you, bend you over and throw you on the bed.” He told another girl aged 14 she had ‘nice boobs.’
Kitchen, boss of family-run Velden Engineering in Bolton, was arrested after the horrified father of one of the girls discovered explicit messages while checking his daughter’s phone.
One message by Kitchen read: “Is it wrong that I find the idea of you in a school uniform a turnon?’
Police later searched the businessman’s mobile phone and found a one hour 14 minute long explicit video of another unidentified girl, aged between 15 and 17.
In a statement, the 15-year old victim’s mother said: “She was a bright child who wanted to do well in life and had dreams and aspirations for the future – but this has had a distressing impact on her.
“She has struggled in school and could not do well with the stress of the exams due to the thought of having to stand up in court in front of strangers.
“She had to seek professional help after she said she didn’t want to live any more and she said she was selfharming. We as a family feel this situation will have a lasting affect on her.’’ At Bolton Crown Court, Kitchen, from Horwich, admitted inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, engaging in sexual communication with a child and possessing indecent images of children.
He was given a 10-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, after he said he was addressing his ‘issues.’ He has been forced to live away from his partner of 20 years and their two daughters since his arrest.
The incidents occurred between April and November 2017 after IT expert Kitchen took over as MD from his father at the family-run firm.
Officers later liaised with colleagues in Hampshire who said Kitchen had also been communication with two girls from the south. Steven Swift, defending, said: “He is someone who finds it very, very difficult to talk to or discuss the substance of the allegations. He is taking steps and trying to address his thinking and there has been no further offending of the last two and a half years. As a result of the offences he is living with his parents.’’ Sentencing Judge Richard Gioserano said: “You were engaged in grooming behaviour, in particular the use and promise of gifts to encourage those girls to interact with you. There was a significant disparity in age and you lied about your true age.
“There is little you, or I, can do to repair the emotional harm to those girls.
“I have reservations about your genuine remorse.”
Kitchen was also ordered to complete 200 hours unpaid work, abide by a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for five years and sign the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years.
He was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £1,800.
Message sent by Austin Kitchen to girl, 15