A PAEDOPHILE who had sex with an underage girl and encouraged her to perform a sex act on him in a cinema is today beginning a four-year jail term.Taxi driver Mark Filby committed his first offence against the girl when he groped her breasts.

A PAEDOPHILE who had sex with an underage girl and encouraged her to perform a sex act on him in a cinema is today beginning a four-year jail term.

Taxi driver Mark Filby committed his first offence against the girl when he groped her breasts.

Two years later he had penetrative sex with the teenager and twice allowed her to perform a sex act on him.

The 30-year-old was jailed at Ipswich Crown Court yesterday after confessing to engaging in sexual activity with a child and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

Judge Neil McKittrick told Filby, of Cavan Road, Ipswich, there were elements of grooming in his behaviour toward the girl.

He said: “However mature she may be in many respects when this started she was a child. She was at that age between being a child and developing into a young woman.

“You fondled her breasts over a period of minutes.

“That incident, although there was a plain gap, led to conduct that was much worse.

“You had sexual intercourse with her on a number of occasions over a period of about two weeks.”

Ipswich Crown Court heard that Filby had unprotected sex with the girl and encouraged her to perform a sex act on him twice, including once when the pair were in a cinema.

Ian Pells, prosecuting, told the court that Filby had handed himself in to police after being consumed by guilt.

He said: “The defendant accepted full responsibility and was remorseful.”

Hugh Vass, mitigating, said Filby, who had no previous convictions, had admitted feeling “loads and loads of guilt” and had told police: “I feel really disgusted. I feel terrible.”

Judge McKittrick sentenced Filby to two years in jail for touching the girl's breasts. He ordered him to serve a four-year term, to run concurrently, for counts two, three and four which related to him having sex with her and he sentenced him to a further three year term, also to run concurrently, for inciting her to engage in a sex act.

Filby was placed on the sex offenders' register for an unlimited period and disqualified from working with children indefinitely.

He was also made the subject of a sex offences prevention order given his occupation as a taxi driver which will prevent him from being in a taxi or any other vehicle with a girl under 18 years unless the girl is accompanied by an adult.