Wrexham man jailed for relentless abuse of girl, 13

A Wrexham man who subjected a 13-year-old girl to months of sexual abuse has been handed a nine-year prison sentence.

Nico Williams, 28, from Vicarage Hill in Rhostyllen, carried out what a judge described as a “relentless campaign” of grooming and exploitation against the youngster over a five-month period. The court heard Williams first approached the girl outside an Aldi store in Sheffield before travelling to the city multiple times to abuse her.

During one 24-hour period alone, prosecutors revealed there were 960 phone calls and messages exchanged between Williams and his victim. The predator recorded sexual encounters in woodland and made disturbing demands, including asking the child to send him videos of herself using the toilet.

His crimes only came to light when his former girlfriend discovered indecent material on his phone and alerted South Yorkshire Police, who then contacted North Wales Police. Officers seized Williams’s device along with a notebook containing a photograph of the victim and her rose gold iPhone, which he had kept after buying her a replacement.

The girl’s family, who could not bear to attend the sentencing hearing at Caernarfon Crown Court, described through a relative how Williams manipulated their daughter. “He was grooming her…making her do things she did not want to do,” they said, adding: “He threatened to harm or kill himself.”

Her Honour Nicola Jones told Williams there had been “sexual abuse, grooming and predatory behaviour in respect of this 13-year-old girl” and condemned his “relentless campaign in getting this child to succumb to your sexual whims and needs”.

Williams admitted sexual activity with a child, meeting a child following sexual grooming, causing the sexual exploitation of a child, and making indecent images across categories A, B and C. He received nine-year sentences for three counts of sexual activity with a child, with two running concurrently, alongside other concurrent terms.

The court imposed indefinite sex offender notification requirements, a sexual harm prevention order, and a restraining order. Passing sentence, Judge Jones acknowledged the lasting damage: “We do not know the impact and the harm that these offences will have on her on a long-term basis.”