Hartlepool sex abuser struck again while on bail for assaults on young girls

The case was heard at Teesside Crown Court.

A relative of one of his victims screamed at Scott Kitching, 21, as he was jailed for 16 months at Teesside Crown Court.

Kitching, from Hartlepool, had admitted sexually assaulting three young girls.

Prosecutor Paul Cleasby said that Kitching pulled down the girls' trousers, and he also sexually assaulted a young woman on six or seven occasions .

The court heard she responded by punching him in the face to get him to stop.

When police interviewed him he said that she had "come on" to him, and he claimed he had told her to stop.

But Kitching was bailed to an address in West Yorkshire when he committed six sexual assaults on a teenage girl.

He was tried and convicted at Halifax Magistrates Court and he was then committed to the Crown Court for sentence.

The Crown asked for a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 10 years, which the Recorder of Middlesbrough made banning him from unsupervised contact with children under 16 or without the consent of Social Services.

Erimnaz Mushtaq, defending, told Judge Simon QC that Kitching was concerned that an order would also ban him from having contact with his children.

She said that he had a low IQ with a degree of learning difficulties, which could in part explain his behaviour.

She said that if he was allowed to remain in the community he could receive help one-to-one.

The judge told Kitching, who appeared over a videolink from Durham Jail, that he was concerned because of the number of victims involved, his persistence and his attitude to offending.

Judge Bourne-Arton said: "The problem I have is that notwithstanding your problems and your learning difficulties you have had a lack of sense and appreciation of what you have done and you continue to blame your victims."

Kitching, of Skelton Street, Hartlepool, was jailed for 16 months after he pleaded guilty to three sexual assaults on a child under 13 and two sexual assaults, and he was convicted of six sexual assaults at Halifax Magistrates Court.