CHIPPENHAM NEWS: A 48-year-old swimming coach who started having an affair with a 13-year-old girl has been jailed for three and a half years.

Steven Hartley, who works for the MoD in Corsham and was a foster carer for the county council, began abusing the girl, 31 years his junior, before going on to have full sex with her when she turned 16.

But the married father of three daughters has now been jailed after a court heard how he formed a relationship with the youngster, who had become infatuated with him.

Jane Warren, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court Hartley first met the girl when she was 10 or 11 and he was a coach at Warminster and District Amateur Swimming Club.

She said they spent a lot of time together and by 2000, when the girl was 13, it must have been obvious to him that she was infatuated with him.

"If it wasn't it would have been when she started to send sexual text messages to him," said Miss Warren.

He was suspended from the club after one of his daughters saw a text but rather than distance himself from the child he allowed the relationship to grow, meeting up in secret.

"By the time she was 16 they started to have full consensual sex which continued up until his arrest," she said.

Miss Warren said Hartley had become so close to the girl's family that when his wife realised he was having an affair she thought it was with his victim's mum.

She said the police became involved after the girl confided in someone who then told her parents.

"It was clear to the police that she viewed the relationship as one between equals and found it difficult to see it was abusive."

Miss Warren said he was released on bail after his arrest but remanded in custody after emailing the girl and even when he was in custody he sent her a letter.

At an earlier hearing Hartley, of Hawkeridge Park, Westbury, admitted four counts of indecent assault and one of indecency with a child.

Graham Smith, defending, said his client served in the Royal Green Jackets for 25 years and was now a broken man. He said when Hartley is released from custody he will not contact the girl and is full of remorse.

Mr Smith said his client realises he was the adult in the relationship and it was his duty to make sure nothing happened. He said when he was released he would be in his fifties and would struggle to find work.

"There is a stigma attached to him now and his family will have to sell the house and move to a new area," he said.

"He has a wife and three daughters who still support him but who are disappointed and devastated, that this has happened to their family."

Jailing him, Judge Guy Boney QC said: "It is a major tragedy to see a man like you standing in the dock in the crown court surrounded by the wreckage of your life.

"You were a man of 43 and she was 13. You were in a position of responsibility to her and her parents and they were entitled to expect her to be safe in your care.

"You yielded to weakness and you behaved in a way no teacher should to a pupil."

As well as jailing him he will also have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and will be banned from working with children.