Charity man assaulted vulnerable teenager

Paul Blackwell was a driver collecting furniture for the charity in Leeds when he invited the 16-year-old to his flat in December 2007, offering to show him the cannabis plants he was growing.

Once there, however, he initiated a discussion about clothes. He then produced a tape measure and pretended to be measuring him while kneeling in front of him.

The teenager said Blackwell then suddenly pulled down his jogging bottoms and underpants and touched his private parts.

Mark McKone, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Court yesterday the teenager told his mother what had happened, describing Blackwell as "a nonce".

The police were informed and when they went to the flat in Brooklands Towers, Leeds, Blackwell said: "I knew you were coming."

Officers found six cannabis plants which were five feet tall and two bags of cannabis which he said were for his own use.

His computer equipment was also seized and around 600 indecent images of children were found on his laptop and hard drive. Some had already been deleted but the rest were in a user created file.

Graham Parkin, for Blackwell, said there had been an unacceptable two-year delay in his being brought to court and he had been in no trouble since.

Blackwell, 48, now of Queens Avenue, Pontefract admitted sexual assault on the teenager, 10 charges of making indecent images, one of possessing indecent images and one of producing cannabis.

He was given a three-year community order with supervision and a condition of attending a sex offender programme. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for five years.