A predator who fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl has been accused of ‘targeting children and getting them pregnant’, a court heard. Aaron Burke admitted four breaches of a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) after officers found he tried to hide conversations with two women, whom he was banned from contacting, by deleting WhatsApp messages and putting his phone under a bin.
The 31-year-old, of Brook Drive in Kennington, was also found guilty of assault causing the victim actual bodily harm after a trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court. On Thursday (June 14) the court heard Burke ‘struck her with a back-handed slap’ and called her ‘stupid’ and ‘dirty b**ch’ after she accused him of infidelity. The slap left her with pain and reddening to the face.
Burke was also accused of rape, but was acquitted after a trial. Prosecutor Stephen Cooke said ‘there seems to be a pattern of behaviour’ that began with another girl Burke was ‘involved with’ between 2010 to 2017. Aged 14, she claimed she was pregnant by Burke, and made allegations about violence and malicious communications that were not pursued by police, the court was told.
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Burke was also convicted of ABH and jailed for 15 months in 2018 in relation to a different woman, whom he also impregnated. The pair had split up, and she had care of the child, but she renewed contact with Burke after the death of his mum. Hearing of the child, Burke shouted the child was a ‘horrible kid’ and ‘should have been aborted’, the court heard.
When she told him to get out, he kicked and punched her repeatedly, gave her a black eye and broke her nose. As Burke dragged her back into the house, neighbours had rescue her so she could escape. Mr Cooke said the Crown had information to suggest Burke had then tried to contact her from prison, breaking the terms of his restraining order, but that allegation was not pursued.
There was also another young girl who came to the attention of police when she was 14-years-old, after she fell out of Burke’s car and broke her ankle, the court was told. Mr Cooke said she was aged 15 when she became pregnant by Burke, who was later convicted of keeping a child away from the responsible person in relation to her.
“There seems to be some pattern in targeting children, aged 14 to 15, them becoming pregnant, then there being a relationship of violence and control,” alleged Mr Cooke.
‘Wholly deliberate’
Burke – who rolled his eyes and shook his head throughout Mr Cooke’s opening – was given an interim SHPO at Highbury Magistrates’ in July last year, after the bench considered him a threat to young girls and his previous partners. But, only a few days later, when police turned up at Burke’s house to check he was complying, he made up a slew of lies to avoid being detected.
Burke told officers his phone was at a repair shop, then pretended he could not remember which shop it was. Officers, who suspected he was deceiving them, searched the area and found Burke’s phone hidden under a salt grit bin with a number of deleted WhatsApp messages.
The discovery meant Burke had broken four terms of his SHPO, those being failing to notify police of a new phone; failing to provide a phone for inspection when asked; and two counts deleting messages in relation to a named person.
One of those people, the 17-year-old girl Burke was convicted of slapping, said ‘the messages would have been abusive’. Mr Cooke said the message deletion was ‘wholly deliberate’ as he called for a prison sentence.
‘Utterly corrosive’
Defence counsel Brian Kennedy asked the judge not to make any sentencing decision on the basis of ‘unproven allegations’, but conceded the SHPO had been put in place to ‘stop him having sexual behaviour with young girls who he then goes on to assault’. He argued the case was essentially about ‘a single slap’ that was ‘short lived’ and caused reddening to the face.
“I accept this relationship was utterly corrosive for this woman, of course I do. But that ABH conviction can’t be a Trojan Horse for sentencing that his disproportionate to what the jury convicted him for,” said Mr Kennedy, adding: “I do not accept previous allegations are an aggravating feature.”
Mr Kennedy conceded the girl was underage when she had Burke’s child, but argued breaching a SHPO offence, for which he was charged, could be distilled into ‘texting a 17-year-old with whom he had a child’.
‘Manipulative and predatory’
The Honorary Recorder of Redbridge Judge Rosa Dean said Burke had ‘almost immediately’ breached his SHPO and did ‘absolutely all you could’ to avoid being caught. The judge also noted Burke had already been sent to prison in March that year for breaching another SHPO intended to protect young women and girls, and breached a Community Order in 2020.
Judge Dean considered the findings of a probation officer who said Burke showed a ‘pervasive pattern of aggressive behaviour’ and described him as ‘manipulative’ and ‘predatory’. The officer concluded he still poses a risk of ‘serious harm’ unless he can ‘radically’ shift his behaviour. She dismissed the idea the assault was merely ‘an impulsive slap’ and said it had to be viewed in the context of an abusive relationship.
Burke was jailed for 10 months for the ABH and 27 months for the SHPO breaches, bringing his total sentence to three years and one month, of which he must serve half.
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