A Letchworth man who admitted to having sex with an underage girl was handed a 12-month prison sentence by a judge.

Brian Purkiss, 25, of Campers Avenue, appeared at Huntingdon Crown Court yesterday after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing of engaging in sexual activity with a child.

The court heard that Purkiss had met the 14-year-old victim through a friend and started contacting her in 2013.

Claire Matthews, prosecuting, said: “The sexual activity continued from October 2013 to May 2014. She would meet up with the defendant in his car and would usually drive to Milton Country Park and have sex.”

Judge Jonathan Cooper was told that the victim sent a text message to Purkiss in the early stage of their relationship and told him she was only 14.

“He replied to her and said that age didn’t matter to him,” added Ms Matthews.

In 2014, the victim’s family became suspicious about the pair and went to the police at which point the pair said they had ‘done nothing wrong’.

During the police investigation it was found that Purkiss had hundreds of text messages and a lengthy record of phone calls between himself and victim, which he had attempted to delete but had been stored in the phone’s memory.

Sentencing, Judge Cooper described Purkiss as showing ‘no remorse’ and said that he had ‘a lot of growing up to do’.

The judge ordered him to serve half his sentence before he can be considered for release on licence and for that licence to run until the end of his sentence.

Purkiss was also ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register and was banned from having any contact with his victim for a period of 10 years, and from working with children indefinitely.