Man jailed for nine years for grooming and isolating young girl in Manchester

David Stewart (23/09/1999) of Fordhouse Lane, Birmingham has today (Tuesday 4 March) been jailed for nine years after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual activity with a child under 16, meeting a child following sexual grooming, child abduction, and witness intimidation. He is also subject to an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order and a restraining order. 

In August 2023, Manchester Children’s Services received a disclosure from a parent who had serious concerns about the inappropriate behaviour of Stewart towards her teenage daughter. Officers and partners based in our multi-agency Complex Safeguarding Hub immediately launched an investigation to understand the serious allegations, but most importantly, specialist agencies were deployed to safeguard the victim and her family and offer them the support and care they needed.

The purpose of our co-located and multi-agency Complex Safeguarding Hub is to ensure that as soon as we receive reports of potential child exploitation, all agencies can immediately pull together and implement a bespoke care plan whilst specially trained detectives begin their investigation to identify and locate the offender.

The investigation uncovered that around May 2023, Stewart contacted the victim, a 13-year-old girl, on social media.

Over several months, he groomed the young girl, isolated her from support, repeatedly lured her away from family, and went on to sexually exploit her.

In September 2023, Stewart was arrested on suspicion of sexual grooming. He was bailed whilst detectives built a case, but he was given a child abduction warning notice, which prohibits him from contacting the victim or spending time with them. The aim of these notices is to safeguard vulnerable children from abuse and exploitation and can be an additional tool used by police to disrupt contact between a vulnerable child and predatory adult.

In December 2023, we received intelligence that Stewart was still in contact with the victim. Detectives identified that he had lured her to the airport and following an extensive CCTV trawl, they found crucial footage of Stewart sexually abusing the victim.

A man hunt was launched to trace Stewart, and he was swiftly arrested in Shropshire in the West Midlands. He was transported back to Manchester, and he was charged and remanded so that he could not be a risk to anyone.

Detective Inspector Chris Chadderton from our Manchester Complex Safeguarding Hub said: “Stewart manipulated and abused this young girl to satisfy his own depraved sexual urges. He continued to offend whilst under police investigation, demonstrating his callous and brazen nature, so I am pleased that this sentence has been passed down and he is now behind bars.

“I, and the entire partnership in our Complex Safeguarding Hub, would like to praise the victim for her courage in providing evidence in this case. Without her support, we would not have had the strong case that we built, which ultimately left Stewart with no choice but to plead guilty to his crimes.”