'Predatory' sex offender has sentence increased

The ruling was given after the Solicitor General claimed Ashley Darbyshire's sentence was "unduly lenient"

A "predatory" sexual offender who abused five underage girls, two of whom he raped, has had his jail sentence increased at the Court of Appeal.

Ashley Darbyshire was imprisoned for 15 years in April after admitting 19 offences, including rape, sexual activity with a child and making indecent images.

One victim, referred to as V1, was abused by the 28-year-old over two years, beginning when she was just 13.

The sentence was referred to the court by the Solicitor General, who claimed it was "unduly lenient", and earlier three senior judges ruled Darbyshire's sentence should be increased to 18 and a half years.

During the time Darbyshire was abusing V1, he introduced her to eight other offenders - Cory Barrett, Jack Poulson, Brandon Harwood, Richard Haslam, Elliot Turner, James Fitzgerald, Ross Corley and Daniel Bainbridge-Flatters, who abused her in the Blackrod and Adlington areas of Bolton, Greater Manchester.

They were jailed alongside Darbyshire at Liverpool Crown Court.

They were jailed for between two and 17 years for a combined 37 offences against V1, with Poulson, Harwood, Barrett and Haslam convicted of raping her.

The Solicitor General also referred their sentences to the Court of Appeal, but these cases were dismissed by the judges.

'Entrenched behaviour'

Lord Justice Edis, sitting with Mr Justice Butcher and Judge Angela Morris, said: "Darbyshire was significantly more culpable than anyone else in this case, having committed 19 offences against five victims."

He said Darbyshire "is a predatory sexual offender who targets child victims", adding that "the persistent and entrenched nature of his behaviour in targeting not just one 13 to 14-year-old child, but five, is also a highly material factor".

Darbyshire first contacted V1 on social media in 2016, when she was aged 13 and he was 19, the court heard.

He went on to abuse her until she was 15, raping her twice, and abusing four other girls aged under 16, one of whom he also raped.

Sentencing him, Judge Simon Medland KC said Darbyshire had a "crazed attitude to sex" and that he treated V1 as a "human sexual commodity".

In her victim personal statement read out at sentencing, V1 said: "I'd rather be dead most days than deal with all this mental torture and memories.

"I shouldn't have had to grow up so young and spend the rest of my life 'healing' from what these monsters did to me, leaving me in my own prison I built for myself in my own mind for the rest of my life."

Lord Justice Edis, Mr Justice Butcher and Judge Morris also dismissed bids by Poulson and Harwood to appeal against their sentences on Wednesday.