Teenager sentenced after ‘intense’ online relationship

Shay Alan Wilson-Robe had formed the online relationship with the victim in 2022 when she was 14, Ipswich Crown Court heard. He was a few months older than she was.

The message became “very intense and sexualised” Judge Nicola Talbot-Hadley said. The teenagers broke up around the victim’s 15th birthday but later got back together.

The victim paid for Wilson-Robe to travel to Suffolk from Newcastle to stay at her family home, and he slept in her bed with her mother’s consent.

In two visits, the two were intimate multiple times. These encounters formed the charges, with Wilson-Robe admitting to three counts of engaging in penetrative sexual activity with a child, which took place during visits in April and July of 2023. He would have been 16 at the time.

Wilson-Robe was found not guilty of rape and intentional strangulation during his trial in June of this year.

The victim made it clear that she loved Wilson-Robe, Judge Talbot-Hadley said. Looking back, the victim said there was an “intensity” to their relationship with which she was not comfortable.

Wilson-Robe described their relations as “consensual non-consensual sex,” said Judge Talbot-Hadley. He demonstrated “a need for ownership, control and power” and an interest in “acts of violence and sado-masochism,” which he described as his “fantasy” during his trial.

Speaking in court, the victim said it made them feel “sick” to think about how young they were during their relationship with Wilson-Robe and said they had spent “countless hours in therapy”.

“At 15, I had so much love to give and you took all of it,” they said.

Judge Talbot-Hadley sentenced Wilson-Robe, of Dene View, Blyth, Northumberland, to 16 months in prison which she suspended for two years.

Wilson-Robe will also carry out up to 15 rehabilitation activity requirement days and an accredited program with the probation service.