Sexual predator had a taste for young teens

A SEXUAL predator who targeted teenage girls while gaining their trust as a "big brother" figure has been jailed for seven years.

Recorder Peter Thomas QC said Craig Buttenshaw, from Newton Abbot, had spoken with "relish" about his sex with an underage girl, while giving evidence at Exeter Crown Court.

Buttenshaw, 33, of Rosemary Avenue, was sent to prison at Exeter Crown Court yesterday, following a trial last month.

He had denied 20 sexual offences involving three teenagers, two of whom were underage, in Devon during the last decade.

He was convicted of 12 offences against the two underage girls. One girl told the court that Buttenshaw began molesting her when she was 12 years old.

She said he started by kissing her, then touching her sexually, before repeatedly raping her.

The defendant, who had been charged with 13 offences against her, claimed to have never sexually touched her.

He was convicted of three indecent assaults and four offences of sexual activity with a child. The jury acquitted him of four offences of raping her and two indecent assaults.

Another girl said Buttenshaw began abusing her when she was 14 years old.

He claimed that the girl told him she was 16, so they had a consensual sexual relationship before he dumped her when she revealed her true age.

The jury convicted him of four offences of sexual activity with a child, involving her, and acquitted him of one similar charge.

He was found not guilty of raping a 17-year-old. She had told the court that he raped her and that she went on to have one consensual "threesome" with him and another woman on another occasion.

Defence counsel Piers Norsworthy yesterday said Buttenshaw still insisted that he had never knowingly had sex with an underage girl.

The defendant had been cheating on his girlfriend at the time because their relationship was at "rock bottom" but they were still together and he had missed the birth of his second child while in custody.

"He is a bit of a kid at heart," said Mr Norsworthy, describing Buttenshaw as immature. "I don’t know if the phrase ‘Peter Pan’ was used at trial."

But the judge told Buttenshaw that he had seduced the girls by portraying himself as an "older brother figure".

He said: "You carefully and determinedly took advantage of the trust of these girls and their parents and you did so to gratify your taste for prepubescent girls."

The judge, referring to the second girl, who Buttenshaw claimed he thought was 16, said: "I heard your evidence in the witness box and in my view there was more than a hint of relish in the way you described your sexual relationship with the second girl."

He added: "You displayed cunning throughout these proceedings."

Buttenshaw will be put on the sex offenders’ register until further notice.