A 22-YEAR-OLD man has been jailed for the “deeply humiliating” and “utterly wrong” sexual abuse of three teenage girls.

Michael Rowan, formerly from Banbury but now living in Thornleigh Road, Bristol, was told by a judge in Oxford Crown Court he had “grotesquely” abused his victims.

He had pleaded guilty to a total of 20 offences – 18 charges of engaging in sexual activity with a child, one count of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and one count of making indecent images of children.

Graham Smith, prosecuting, said Rowan’s crimes were committed between 2009 and 2013 in Banbury.

He told Judge Ian Pringle that all three were girls when the abuse started, and two had sex with the defendant on a number of occasions.

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Mr Smith said the girl who was abused for the longest period – between 2010 and 2013 – was tied up, gagged and told to wear a dog collar during the abuse.

He said: “She describes how she was controlled by him, and did anything he asked her to do.

“She realises now that she was emotionally manipulated and she did things that she should never have done. She feels that she was this defendant’s puppet.”

Alexandra Ball, defending, said her client was deeply ashamed of what he had done.

She said: “There is a distinction to be had between the teenager who committed these offences, and the young man who stands in court today.

“He was having difficulties at home, there were some issues between himself and his father. There was some violence about three or four times a year. But it was severe.

“His older brother also bullied him significantly from a very early age.”

Judge Pringle told Rowan that in the case of the victim who had suffered the most abuse it must be “deeply humiliating” to think about what he made her do.

He said: “Even at only 17 or 18, you must have known that what you were doing to those young people was utterly wrong.”

Rowan was sentenced to four years in prison and was made subject to an indefinite sexual offences prevention order.

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