A man has been jailed for a series of systematic sexual attacks on a teenage girl he knew.

Verol Wynter, 56, formerly of Chippendale Road, Crawley, and now of Brooke Road, Hackney, East London, appeared at Brighton Crown Court on Thursday (May 12). 

Unemployed Wynter was sentenced to three years in jail after being found guilty of three counts of sexual assaults, in Crawley, on the victim who was aged between 14 and 16 at the time. These were specimen counts representing multiple assaults. He was given three years for each count, to be served concurrently.

The 56-year-old will be a registered sex offender for life and was issued with a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) to last indefinitely, severely restricting his access to children.

Detective Constable Nicky Beard of the West Sussex Safeguarding Investigations Unit said; "The victim showed great courage in coming forward and givng evidence. Wynter had gradually managed to achieve a measure of coercion and control over her, taking advantage of her natural vulnerability to carry out a series of humiliating assaults.

"In sentencing the court noted that Wynter's behaviour towards her was grooming, an abuse of position of trust, abusive, manipulative and controlling and that the repeated sexual assaults had a severe psychological effect on her.

"This case again shows that we will always take such reports seriously, and will work to seek justice wherever possible and appropriate."

Wynter had been found not guilty of a further count of sexual assaults on the same girl and not guilty of 10 sexual assaults on another girl between 2009 and 2001.