A ‘PREDATORY’ teenager who had sex with a Burnley schoolgirl has been sent to custody for 28 months.

Daniel Shaw, 18, had got to know the girl through internet chat and knew she was only 14, the town's crown court heard.

The victim had not told anyone what had happened, but her mother found out when she read her diary.

The girl ‘spends most of her time in a depressed state’ re-living the horror of her ordeal, the court was told.

Shaw, who had never been in trouble before, wept in the dock as a judge told him he had to go to immediate custody.

The defendant, of Norham Close, Burnley, had admitted three charges of sexual activity with a child.

He was banned from working with children and placed on the sex offenders' register.

Stephen Parker, prosecuting, told the court the girl, said to have been drunk, told police she just did what Shaw asked.

She said she had been in pain and scared, he said.

The defendant had committed sex acts and had grabbed her hair.

Shaw was arrested last September 15 and questioned more than once but exercised his right to silence.

Mr Parker said in her impact statement, the victim described the horror she felt after what happened and would say the memories kept going round and round in her head.

The prosecutor added: “She says most of the time she is in a depressed state thinking about what happened and is considering going to see her GP for counselling."

Mr Parker told the hearing Shaw's behaviour had been ‘predatory, deliberate and premeditated’.

Sentencing the defendant, who was accompanied by many family members and friends, Judge Graham Knowles, QC, described the case as a tragedy for all parties.

The judge, who had read 27 references on Shaw's behalf, added he had taken into account all the things the writers had said about the defendant.

Judge Knowles, who said the starting point for what Shaw had done was four years, told him: “I am satisfied you are not a dangerous offender.”