Sentence doubled for Oswestry man who had sex with child

A Shropshire hotel worker who was jailed for having sex with a 14-year-old girl has had his sentence doubled by the country's top judge.

Aaron Coulson, 21, of Gibbons Street, Oswestry, was jailed for a year after he admitted two counts of sexual activity with a child at Mold Crown Court last September.

He was also put on the sex offender's register for 10 years.

But yesterday, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, said the sentence was "unduly lenient" and doubled it to two years at a hearing at the Court of Appeal in London.

The judge told the court how Coulson had had unprotected consensual sex with the 14-year-old girl, only two weeks after going to see a doctor about a sexually transmitted disease he had contracted.

The court heard that the teenager had to undergo "embarrassing" tests to ensure she had not contracted the infection.

Sentencing Coulson last year, Judge John Rogers QC, sitting at Mold Crown Court, said that, although the sex had been consensual, Coulson had taken advantage of the girl, who he saw as an "object" to gratify his sexual appetite.

The case was referred by the country's senior law officer, the Attorney General, Mr Dominic Grieve QC, who argued that it was too short.