A NORTH Yorkshire man who had sex with an underage girl has been jailed.

Duncan Bertie Eddon, formerly of Farwath Road, Pickering, appeared at York Crown Court after pleading guilty to five offences.

The court heard Eddon, 19, admitted he was aware of the girl’s age when the offences took place, when he was 18.

A statement from the girl’s father told the court she had told her parents what had happened before Christmas 2013, when she had become “very withdrawn and quiet”.

For Eddon, Taryn Turner said her client was “a good natured, hard-working young man”, and “it is fair to say he knew it was wrong”.

The Recorder of York Judge Stephen Ashurst sentenced Eddon to 18 months in a young offenders’ institute for each offence, to be served concurrently. He praised him for the fact he had confessed and was “prepared to face the music”, and said he did not regard Eddon as posing a high risk of offending in the future.

He said: “No justice is served by the court imposing an unduly lenient sentence because in those circumstances the whole matter would have to be reopened. In this case I have come to the conclusion that not to send you to custody for having intercourse with an underage girl on five occasions would be an unduly lenient approach.”

Eddon was also placed on the sexual offences register for 10 years.