A ‘predatory’ paedophile repeatedly raped a pair of 12-year-old girls, including in his car after buying them McDonald’s and giving them vodka, a court has heard.

Solomon Asemota, of Queens Grove, Longsight was jailed for 10 years at Manchester Crown Court yesterday (July 21) after pleading guilty to seven counts of rape of a child under 13 and two counts of making an indecent photograph of a child.

The sentencing came after an investigation into offences related to child sexual exploitation by Oldham's Complex Safeguarding Team.

The offences relate to two 12-year-old girls.

Prosecutor Simon Blakebrough told the court that on January 8, 2020, one of the victims was reported missing from home.

On January 9, 2020, the other victim told police the missing victim was with a man called Prince who had taken her to a friend’s house.

She showed police the address of the friend’s house in Cheetham Hill, Manchester and the victim was found at the house in a bed upstairs.

Prince, later identified as the defendant Asemota, was arrested on January 10, 2020. His phone was seized and found to contain semi-naked pictures of both girls.

Asemota was 27 at the time of the offences and is now 30.

Following his arrest, Asemota told police he was “shocked” at the ages of the girls and said he “did not know” they were “that young”.

He said he had met one of the victims on Snapchat and that he then met the other victim through her.

He added that he thought they were “16 or 17 but looked young” although he thought they “couldn’t be as young as 12”.

Asemota said the girls asked him if he was 18 or 19 to which he replied that “he could be” but never revealed his real age.

He admitted he took one of the victims to his aunt’s house and had sex with her while “playing a truth or dare game”.

Asemota later admitted that on a separate occasion he had sex with both victims in his car while after taking them to Mcdonald's.

He said he kept vodka in his car and gave both girls alcohol.

Asemota also admitted having sex with one of the victims on her own in his car on a further occasion.

He drove her home after the incident and was told by someone who knew the victim that he had “a child in his car”.

Discussing the incident on January 9, with police he said both girls were calling him on his way back from work and that he took both to his aunt’s house before taking them to his friend’s house in Cheetham Hill.

He left one of the victims in his car and took the other inside. He suggested that she “hug” his friend and said and that she then had sex with his friend as well as himself.

No evidence was found linking the friend to either victim, but scientific evidence was found that linked the defendant to both victims.

The court then heard moving impact statements from both victims, a statement from the mother of one of the victims, and a statement from a specialist nurse who had worked with both victims.

Within her statement the specialist nurse said both girls had gone through “significant trauma” and neither had the capacity to consent.

She added that the girls were “coerced, manipulated and controlled by adults in positions of power” the impact of which will be “sustained and lifelong”.

In mitigation, defence barrister Michael Johnson said Asemota had no previous convictions of a similar nature and that he was “very candid about what had happened” with police in interviews which “revealed the extent” of his offending despite being “adverse to his interests” and spared the children and their families some of the aspects of the prosecution process.

Mr Johnson added that Asemota accepts the severity of his offending and that he is “the author of his own misfortune”.

Judge Rachel Smith acknowledged Mr Johnson’s points in mitigation.

Speaking to the court she said both victims were “highly vulnerable” and “highly susceptible to exploitation” and described Asemota’s actions as “opportunistic” and “predatory”.

Judge Smith recounted how Asemota had stuck up a conversation with one of the victims on social media and “introduced sexual conversations” before having sex after first meeting her and then moving on to the other victim who he also had sex with including with another man.

She said Asemota had “exploited” both girls “for his own sexual gratification” and that there was evidence of grooming in that he provided the girls with company, transport, food, and drink.

Judge Smith sentenced Asemota to 10 years imprisonment and an extended license period of one year and imposed a sexual harm prevention order of 20 years.