Facebook sex abuser sentenced to 10 years in jail

Ormerod, a 20-year-old from Torbay, Devon, pleaded guilty to 13 counts of sexual activity with eight girls aged 13 and over. He has been sentenced to 10 years in custody.

News media report how Ormerod used Facebook as part of his “campaign to groom naïve and immature girls” and then “mercilessly corrupted” them to satisfy his “insatiable need for sex”.

Exeter court heard how he used to force his victims with drink and drugs in the Devon resort of Torquay, before having unprotected sex. Some of them were virgins and in one session he had sex with three children within 90 minutes.

Judge Philip Wassall said that some of his victims had been “so stupefied they did not find out until later that you had sexual intercource with them.”

After the sentencing, Devon and Cornwall police said they believed Ormerod was part of a wider group of young men in the Torbay and Teignbridge area who had abused girls as young as 11 who went missing from home.

Police and other agencies have acted to safeguard 139 girls who are believed have come into contact with members of the group.

Ormerod was sent to a young offenders’ institution and has been forced to sign the sex offenders’ register for life.