A man who said he entered into a ‘consensual sexual relationship’ with a child almost half his age, telling his friends that she was about to turn 18, has been jailed.

Joshua Carter Denson, originally from Nelson, was arrested on a European warrant in Malta in May and spent time in a Greek prison before being exradited back into the country to answer for his crimes.

He pleaded guilty to seven counts of sexual activity with a child and making indecent images of her and was sentenced at Burnley Crown Court on Wednesday.

The court was told how Denson had met the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, when she was just 15 in 2019, and they had started a ‘relationship’.

Cocaine addict Denson, who was 27 at the time, gave her the drug on occasion.

Denson, now 30, believed at the time his victim was 16 or 17, but she later confessed to being underage.

However, this did not deter him from pursuing his relationship with her and led him to spin a web of lies to his friends and family.

Prosecuting, Lisa Worsley said  in March 2020, the girl’s family found a wrap of cocaine in her school bag, which led to her mother inspecting her phone.

There she found messages and indecent images of her daughter that had been sent to someone called ‘Jay Carter’, an alias of Denson’s.

Miss Worsley said: “The texts were manipulative, and in one of the messages, it was discovered the girl had been in a relationship with the defendant for 11 months.

“Her mother also found designer shoes and handbags the defendant had bought her as well as a sex toy in her drawer.

“The police were called and at first the girl denied being in a relationship with Denson, and said she had bought the sex toy herself, and had bought the cocaine from someone in town.

“Her mother also went through her Facebook messages and found references between the two which were sexual in nature and referred to handcuffs, with one message telling the girl her ‘doggy position was on point’.

“Between March 5 and 18, 2020, the girl began to open up to her mother and told her she had been in a sexual relationship with Denson since she was 15, and didn’t think there was anything wrong with what she was doing.

“In her police interview, the girl said she had first met Denson in February 2019 in Oswaldtwistle and she had visited his house in Nelson several times, but he had thought she was 16 or 17 and at college, not at school.

“Their relationship didn’t become sexual until the summer, while she was still 15, and then she started going out drinking with him, and began to take cocaine.

“Denson told her he didn’t like this but admitted he was taking cocaine too, although he didn’t want her to become reliant on it like he was.

“It wasn’t until December 2019 that she told the defendant she was underage, and when they celebrated her 16th birthday he wanted her to pretend to his friends that she had just turned 18.

“The girl had even met Denson’s mother who had also believed she was 18.”

The court was told their ‘relationship’ came to an end after the girl discovered Denson had been seeing someone else, but not before Denson had suggested having a threesome with one of the girl’s friends and had suggested knife play in the bedroom.

When police examined Denson’s phone they found 105 indecent still and moving images of the girl, two of category A, five of category B and 98 category C.

Miss Worsley said Denson told police he believed she was 17 when he met her and their sexual contact had been consensual.

A victim personal statement from the girl described how she felt she had to put on a front when Denson was in her life, pretending to be older than she was, which led to her growing up before she needed to.

Miss Worsley said: “It has affected her friendships and her relationships with her family.

"Before she met him she had never taken cocaine and she believes he involved her in things she would never have thought about doing before, and feels her teenage years have been robbed from her.”

Denson, who has previous convictions including battery and possession of an offensive weapon, had gone to live in Malta with the mother of his child for a while, and it was here that he was arrested earlier this year, although it was conceded that he had not fled the country and only became aware of the allegations against him upon his arrest.

Sentencing, Judge Andrew Jefferies said: “In a nutshell you embarked upon a wholly inappropriate and illegal relationship with a 15-year-old girl, but I am not satisfied that there is evidence for me to consider that you pose a risk of significant harm to the public.”

Denson, of Burhurst Drive, Blackpool, was jailed for five years and three months, will need to sign the sex offenders register for life and was made subject to a sexual harm prevention order and a lifetime restraining order.