Man jailed for six years for sexual activity with a Nottinghamshire child

A man who travelled to Nottinghamshire from London to engage in sexual activity with a child has been jailed for six years.
Metin Korkut jailed for sexual activity with a child.Metin Korkut jailed for sexual activity with a child.
Metin Korkut jailed for sexual activity with a child.

Metin Korkut, 19, of Langhedge Lane, Edmonton, London, was sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court having previously admitted five charges of sexual activity with a child, one charge of attempted sexual assault on a child and one of causing a child to engage in sexual activity.

The court heard how Korkut befriended a 12-year-old girl on an online chat site when he himself was 15-years-old.

The pair struck up a friendship but over the next three years Korkut became increasingly controlling and possessive. His behaviour included coercing the girl in to giving him her Facebook password and deleting or blocking her male friends, supplying her with a mobile phone which he then synced with his own so he had access to all of her contacts and urging her to cut friends from her life.

Korkut would send sexually explicit messages via text and social media, as well as over video-calling site Skype. Shortly before Valentine’s Day in 2014, when the victim was 14-years-old and Korkut was 17, Korkut took her by taxi to a city centre hotel where he engaged in sexual activity with her.

The victim reported around five further occasions where the pair met in Nottingham and went to a hotel.

On one such occasion in December 2014, she described going to a hotel with Korkut and him pinning her down and attempting to sexually assault her.

Korkut initially denied the allegations against him but later admitted the seven charges at court.

Detective Constable James Bravant said: “Korkut lied to and manipulated his victim from a young age, buying her gifts such as mobile phones, to gain her trust. He used the fact she had lost a close family member to force a connection, lying to her about a similar bereavement of his own.

“He then slowly broke down her social network and trust in family members by exploiting her vulnerability and sought to take complete control of her day to day life for his own ends, by coercing and emotionally blackmailing her.

“The medium Korkut used to gain the victim’s trust was extensive use of social media and mobile phones.

“This case once more highlights the dangers and pitfalls young people face when communicating with people they do not know via the internet. A conversation which begins seemingly innocently can swiftly develop into sexual exploitation.”