A FORMER student who performed sex acts with a schoolgirl he had met minutes earlier has been jailed for eight months.

Burnley Crown Court heard drunken Rizwan Asghar, 20, turned a blind eye to the fact the 14-year-old girl was under the legal age and took advantage of her.

The pair indulged in sex acts in the back seat of a car driven by a man she knew.

The teenager was said to have consented but a judge said she needed protection against her immaturity and should not be led on by an older man.

Judge Stuart Baker said Asghar was significantly older and barely knew the girl.

The judge went on: "She was assured when she got into the car she would be safe. Clearly she wasn't.

"To impose a sentence which would enable you to return immediately to the community would be completely failing to recognise the seriousness of what you have done."

The defendant, of Halifax Road, Brierfield, admitted indecent assault. He was given a three-year extended licence period and put on the Sex Offenders' Register for 10 years.

Asghar was also banned from working with children and must not contact the victim.

The court was told Asghar and the girl kissed in the car. The vehicle then stopped outside a house in Nelson and the defendant and victim were left alone. The teen performed a sex act on him before he tried to carry out one on her.

Asghar accepted he was reckless about the girl's age and accepted she appeared to be under 16. When interviewed by police, he admitted he had turned a blind eye.

Elizabeth Brennan, defending, said Asghar accepted he should have asked the girl's age. She got into the car voluntarily and admitted what then happened was consensual.

But the teenager was not a typical 14-year-old schoolgirl, she said, and had "experiences of the world." She had run away from home soon after the offence and had also had consensual sex with another man since.

Miss Brennan said Asghar's parents were prepared to support him. His father had a clothing business and his mother was a part-time classroom assistant.

The defendant hoped to return to his business studies course and may go to work with his father.