A showjumper offered to pay £50,000 in hush money to an underage girl he targeted for a threesome with a female rider, a court heard.
Guy Simmonds, 37, and Lauren Jarvis, 26, were last night facing the possibility of jail after plotting the sex session despite knowing the girl was under 16 – and the pair then agreed a pact of silence.
Simmonds, a showjumper and stables boss, plotted to pay the teenager’s family to stay silent about what had happened.
But he and Jarvis were yesterday found guilty of sexual activity with a child.
A court heard the pair had ‘no doubt at all’ that the schoolgirl was under 16 before the threesome and vowed to keep it secret.
Prosecutor James Hartson said: ‘At all times he knew how old she was and so did Jarvis. The victim told him herself in one of the very first messages she sent him.
‘They didn’t care about her age when they were planning and engaging in a so-called threesome with the victim.
‘They also knew what they did was wrong and they agreed a pact of silence when they got wind she had started to talk about it.’
Cardiff Crown Court heard Simmonds bragged he was a ‘top showjumper’ after targeting the girl on Facebook.
Mr Hartson said there was a ‘clear element of grooming behaviour’ from Simmonds before the threesome in Jarvis’s home in January last year.
In one message read to court, the girl asked Simmonds what he would make her do and he replied: ‘You will both do what daddy says. It will be fun.’
Simmonds later messaged Jarvis saying: ‘Hey, I have a feeling that she has said [something] about us.
‘If anyone asks for sake of both of us, nothing ever happened that night xx.’
Jarvis replied: ‘Hey, who’s she told? Oh, god has she really, what’s she trying to do, make our lives hell? Of course I will xx.’
The court heard Simmonds told police in an interview he did not have any form of sexual contact with the victim.
But he made calls to his mother from prison instructing her to pay the victim’s ‘fickle’ family £50,000 not to press the case.
He said: ‘There is £20,000 in my account. Just f****** give it to them. I don’t care. £20,000 now and then £10,000 a year for three years.’
Simmonds claimed he had been given permission to ‘stray’ from his partner Rebecca Dimes, 34, on the condition that she ‘did not want to know anything about it.’
Jarvis claimed any messages about a threesome were ‘banter and a wind up’.
Simmonds, of Undy in Gwent, and Jarvis, from Newport, were both found guilty of sexual activity with a child.
Simmonds was found not guilty on five other charges of sexual activity with a child relating to the same victim.
Judge Lucy Crowther adjourned the case for sentencing on September 29.
