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Samuel Culver of Brook Road, Tunbridge Wells due to be sentenced

A pervert who was jailed for trying to abduct a schoolgirl is now facing sentence for a similar offence.

Samuel Culver tried to lure a 15-year-old girl into his Tunbridge Wells home for sexual motives while holding a knife in January 2011.

She was walking past his house when Culver, then 23, shouted to her to “come here” while standing with his trouser zip undone. He told her: “Come in, this will only take five minutes.”

The case was heard at Maidstone Crown Court
The case was heard at Maidstone Crown Court

The girl replied: “I am shaking. I am terrified. Just let me go to school.” She eventually ran to a friend’s house and was “a quivering wreck”.

Culver, of Brook Road, denied attempted child abduction and committing an offence with intent to commit a sexual offence, but was convicted of both charges.

He was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment.

Culver, now 26, was due to stand trial at Maidstone Crown Court this week after denying child abduction with intent to commit a sexual offence on September 22 last year.

He admitted attempted child abduction.

But prosecutor Mark Mullins offered no evidence on the other charge after Judge Philip St John-Stevens ruled against previous convictions being put before the jury as “bad character”.

Culver, who appeared in the dock with an “intermediary” to assist him, was on bail for indecent exposure, committed on August 6 last year, at the time of the latest offence.

The judge said he would not be limited in determining the sentence to be imposed when looking at the pattern of offending and previous convictions.

“The motivation behind it and the reason for committing it is still a matter for the court to determine,” he said.

Timothy Bass, defending, applied for bail with stringent conditions including residence with Culver’s mother at the Brook Road address and no contact with children under 16.

But Judge St John-Stevens remanded him in custody until sentence on June 5.

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