A TEENAGER who had sex with a 13-year-old girl he met near York Minster has been jailed for 12 months.

Alexandru Cosmin Tataru, now 19, took the child back to his east York flat over a takeaway after finding her sitting by herself on a bench in the evening, said Ian Brook, prosecuting.

She spent the night with him and had sex with him.

The next morning she took a selfie of them together and he gave her £30 for the train fare back to her home town.

Tataru, now of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child on the basis he had believed she was aged between 15 and 17.

His barrister Glenn Parsons said: “What took place should not have happened. This defendant closed his eye to what he was doing to this young girl. He went ahead and he shouldn’t have done.”

Jailing Tataru for 12 months, the Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Batty QC told him: “It may well be you were young for your years and she was old for her years.

"But the legislation is designed to protect children, to protect them even against themselves.”

Tataru was put on the sex offenders’ register and made subject to a sexual harm prevention order restricting his behaviour around underage girls, both for 10 years.

Mr Brook said the girl came from a troubled background and had run away from her home.

She had spent the evening wandering around the city centre at one point going into a shop to get warm.

She told police she had told Tataru she was 13.

Tataru was originally on bail, but when he told police in July he wanted to use a plane ticket he had booked before his arrest to go on holiday to his native Romania, he was told to return to York and was remanded in custody.

Mr Parsons said: “It has been a salutary lesson. His wish now is to serve his sentence and go back to Romania where he has family and get on with his life.”