An evil rapist who locked a child’s phone and forced her to have sex with him to get it unlocked has been jailed. Depraved Steven Hargreaves was only caught when his young victim’s mother found sexually explicit messages the paedophile had sent to her daughter’s phone. Knowing the girl needed to use her phone, he had downloaded an app which meant only he could unlock it and told her “you know what you have to do to get it back”.

The monster, whose victim was 10 when his abuse started, has now been jailed for 10 years and put on the sex offender’s register for life. The mother reported the photographs from Hargreaves to police on June 6 but it was only when officers interviewed her daughter on Monday, June 26, that the full scale of the sexual abuse he made her suffer came to light. She told officers she was around 10 when the abuse started, and had been told never to tell anyone it was happening.

She confided in how the 36-year-old groomed her by touching before the abuse escalated to rape.

His last attack was on Tuesday, May 30, just a week before her mother found the depraved messages on her phone.

Police experts who examined the phone found sexual messages between him and his victim going back to 2023.

They also found evidence his victim had, to some extent, become conditioned to the abuse.

Hargreaves admitted two counts of rape of a girl between 13 and 15, and a further two counts of causing a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity.

Joshua Gorst, prosecuting, read out a victim impact statement to Chester Crown Court made by the victim where she explained the ongoing effect of her abuser's actions.

She said what happened was “still sinking in”, and she was “only just starting to understand” the full import of her horror ordeal.

She explained at the time of the abuse, she had never heard the word ‘rape’ but she still knew what was happening to her was wrong.

She said she has been left “feeling dirty”, and “self-conscious about her own body”, adding: “I still scrub myself to get rid of his smell, a musty smell.

“I worry other people will be able to smell it on me.”

She also has difficulty trusting adult males, she said, and is concerned this may affect her for the rest of her life.

Mr Gorst told the court Hargreaves has 17 convictions for 30 offences, mostly for dishonesty, and none for sexual matters.

Defending, Simeon Evans said: “My client makes no excuse for his behaviour.

“It is unusual for a man in his position to plead guilty to these types of offences, but Mr Hargreaves did so at the earliest opportunity in this court.

“This spared his victim, and her family, the pain of having to go through a trial, and she now has the comfort of knowing everything she said has been accepted as truth by this court.”

Mr Evans suggested the fact Hargreaves “said very little, about either his offences, or his own background, can be taken as the measure of a degree of remorse”.

He added: “He understands and accepts he is likely to receive a lengthy custodial sentence.”

Passing sentence, His Honour Judge Simon Berkson described the victim impact statement as “a harrowing and upsetting story of child abuse”, adding: “In your victim's own assessment, your actions are likely to affect her for the rest of her life.

“What a terrible state of affairs for a young child to find herself in, and I only hope she is wrong in that assessment.”

Judge Berkson sentenced Hargreaves to 10-and-a-half years in prison. He must serve two-thirds behind bars.

The judge also made a restraining order preventing Hargreaves contacting his victim for an indefinite length of time, and a 20-year sexual harm prevention order. He is also barred from ever working with children.