A man who drove across the Pennines to have sex with a schoolgirl in Bradford has been jailed for three and a half years.

Bilal Hussain befriended the 13-year-old by chatting over BBM, the Blackberry messaging service, and lied about his age by saying he was 19 when he was actually 24 at the time.

Today, Sophie Drake, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Court that Hussain met the girl on a couple of occasions and knew she was underage because he would pick her up in her school uniform,

He then asked her on the phone if she would have sex with him, to which she replied she did not know. But on one day in January 2013, he drove her to a quiet place when it was dark in the morning and had unprotected sex with her in his VW Golf car.

She also carried out a sexual act on him before he took her to school.

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Miss Drake said on two further occasions he again had sex with the schoolgirl in his car but she stopped seeing him and the relationship was later reported.

She then showed officers an explicit text message Hussain had sent her and a photograph of himself.

He was later arrested and denied knowing the girl or having driven to Bradford to meet her. He also claimed his VW car was off the road at the time following an accident.

Miss Drake said the schoolgirl picked out Hussain at an identification procedure and further inquiries on the Automatic Number Plate Recognition system showed the VW making journeys on the M62 at the relevant times.

Hussain, 26 of Lytton Avenue, Cheetham Hill, Manchester subsequently admitted four charges of sexual activity with a child.

Adam Watkins, representing him, said he now appreciated that it was viewed seriously because however physically mature a girl was at 13 she lacked the emotional maturity to make decisions about a relationship and was therefore vulnerable.

But the girl was sexually experienced before she met Hussain and no coercion or threats were involved in their meetings. She consented to what happened although the judge interposed there was an element of grooming in his contact with the girl.

Mr Watkins said prison would be difficult for Hussain, who had health problems since suffering a heart attack in May 2013 and was receiving medication for depression as well.

Jailing Hussain, Judge Christopher Batty said he had read impressive references on his behalf which painted a different picture about him and accepted he had significant health problems, but the evidence showed his contact with the girl was for no other reason than “sexual gratification.”

“It was never your intention to see her in any other capacity or give her any other relationship.”

He said she was a troubled schoolgirl. “Children that age are not emotionally mature enough to make far reaching decisions about their lives.”

On three occasions he had unprotected sex with the girl not caring if she became pregnant, which at one stage she wrongly thought she had. She only ended contact when, after one incident, he had started playing on his phone and she had damaged his Sim card in anger “no doubt realising how she had been used and abused.”