Pensioner 'overstepped the mark' with teenage boy

Ezekiel Awadth admitted breaching a restraining order imposed in 2013 but insisted it was always the boy who instigated the contact between them.

Southampton Crown Court heard that on one occasion the 67-year-old and the teenager went to Kent to collect a puppy and stayed in a hotel overnight.

But Mary Aspinall-Miles, prosecuting, said the relationship between the two was never sexual.

She added: “The defendant says it was the boy who tracked him down.

“There is no suggestion that any force or coercion was used.”

Keely Harvey, in mitigation, said the boy began to seek “help and assistance” from the defendant when they lived near each other in London.

She added: “Awadth seemed to want to try to take care of the teenager and perhaps over-stepped the mark, which led to animosity between him and the boy’s family.”

Referring to the defendant’s guilty plea she added: “He knows he has been naive and stupid.

“He says the boy told him ‘my mum has ripped up the restraining order – it doesn’t exist any more’ and took his word for it.

“It was the boy who called him up and not the reverse.

“It’s quite clearly the teenager who tried to contact him. Awadth does not want that contact and went to the police but nothing was done.”

The defendant moved to Southampton in search of a more relaxed lifestyle but later returned to London, the court heard.

Recorder Nicholas Haggan QC told him: “You formed a relationship with a young boy and continued in that association, despite a restraining order being made, and met him on a number of occasions.”

Awadth, now living at Blackborne Road, in Dagenham, was handed an 18-month community order and a further restraining order that will last two years.

He was ordered to ignore the teenager if he again tried to make contact.

Recorder Haggan told him: “He’s a young boy and you are much older.

“You have a responsibility to ensure that you comply with the terms of the restraining order.”