A 22-year-old Widnes man who kept seeing a schoolgirl despite an official warning to keep away from her has been jailed for a year at Liverpool Crown Court today.

Mark Cleminson had been given a Child Abduction Warning Notice by police earlier in the summer telling him not to have any contact with the 15-year-old.

But the court heard that they still continued to regularly meet up and on September 3 they were together at the home of a friend of Cleminson’s.

Her mum found out and went round to the property on Baguley Avenue, Widnes, with her partner but by the time the front door was opened Cleminson had fled through a back door.

Christopher Hopkins, prosecuting, said that phone messages showed that Cleminson had repeatedly told the girl that he loved her but in a statement she told how she wanted to end the relationship ‘and get on with my life’.

Cleminson, of Leigh Avenue, Widnes, pleaded guilty to child abduction and admitted being in breach of an eight month suspended sentence.

The judge, Recorder Richard Pratt, QC, sentenced him to eight months imprisonment for the offence and activated half the suspended sentence to run consecutively making a total of 12 months.

He told the bearded defendant that he accepted that the offence did not involve “forceful contact or prolonged detention.”

Recorder Pratt said that despite knowing about the warning notice the girl had “in her immature way” agreed to meet him.

The judge said: “It may be you felt genuine affection but that is misplaced. You are an adult person and she is a teenage child.”

He pointed out that the offence was aggravated by him having received the warning notice and being in breach of a suspended sentence.

“I have no doubt that it is my public duty to impose an immediate custodial sentence,” he added.