The judge clearly thought the answer to your question was a huge yes.
When you were arrested you lied to Stacey Flounders about M. Whilst in interview you admitted kissing M, you lied about the nature and extent of your contact with her and you lied then and throughout the months which followed about the level of your sexual activity with her. You had every opportunity to enter guilty pleas to the matters you finally admitted to the Court but you chose not to do so, and one consequence of that is that M was regarded as a liar, by her peers and by the football supporters who would chant abuse about her. Little wonder that by the time of this trial she had, in her words endured a year of abuse, of being called a liar and other more graphic insults, and was deeply upset by what you had done to her and by her treatment, such that she required counselling and such that she reached the lowest ebb after she gave evidence. I shall return to the psychological impact of this case upon M shortly. That impact demonstrates why your offending against M provides a very good illustration of the inability of a 15 year old girl to deal with the emotional consequences of engaging in sexual activity with a man some 12 years her senior.
A further aggravating factor in such cases is where there is severe psychological harm. I have the benefit of information as to the impact of your offending on M. I have the detail discussed in her interview with the police on 16th April 2015, in which M spoke of people asking her about this matter and judging her, with particular reference to the impact upon her schooling and her life outside school. She spoke of an incident where a complete stranger made unpleasant and hurtful comments to her about what had happened, at a time when M was with family on a trip away from home. She said that she was scared by that experience, noting that the person who approached her was completely unknown to her. M also spoke about the impact of the offending on members of her family.
