A mother of two has been jailed for 10 years for pimping out a 13-year-old girl to have sex with a man at her home in Hove and six other sexual offences.
Karen Potter, 36, was jailed with two men – Neil Oxlade and Daniel McCaw – by Judge David Rennie at Brighton Crown Court today (Tuesday 31 January).
Judge Rennie told Potter: “The most serious aspect of your case is the truly shocking breach of trust that you showed (to the victim).
“It appears that things were increasingly tight financially … Having said that, there are thousands of households that know first-hand just how stressful and demanding financial hardship will always be.
“Hardly any of them would dream, even for one moment, of doing what you decided to – namely the pimping out of a child.
“It almost beggars belief but that is the choice you made.”
The judge said that Potter had put the victim to work by having sex for money, having given her vodka and cannabis and cajoled her.
He said that having had sex in her presence, “she was then told it was her turn and … she was put into a nightmarishly difficult situation that was way beyond her ability to control”.
He said that it was “a truly sordid and degrading scenario”.
Potter, of Harrison Road, Worthing, was jailed for prostituting the 13-year-old girl to Oxlade and McCaw. She was also jailed for sex with Oxlade in front of her and, separately, McCaw.
She was also jailed for prostituting another girl to Oxlade. He was described by his barrister Bernard Eaton in mitigation as “a hapless character who has lived at home for most of his life”.
Oxlade, 38, of Tanllwyfan, Colwyn Bay, Wales, was jailed for six and a half years for paying for sex with a child and engaging in sexual activity in front of a child.
Judge Rennie told him: “This was an appalling thing to do to a child just for your twisted sexual satisfaction and for money.
“You bought a child for sex.”
The court was told that Daniel McCaw, 43, of Blacksmiths Crescent, Sompting, had a history of mental illness, had a drink problem, had been a crack cocaine user and was heavily medicated.
Jailing McCaw for five years, the judge said: “You knew that she was under the age of 16 and had sexual intercourse with her anyway.
“You got the drunken threesome you wanted, with a child, for money.”
