Woman jailed for having sex with 13-year-old boy to ‘prove he’s not gay’
Lucy Hambley was jailed for forcing a child to have sex with her. (Cornwall Live)
A woman groomed a child with cigarettes and alcohol before taking advantage of him to “prove” he is not gay, leaving the boy “destroyed” and suicidal.
Lucy Jayne Hambley, 40, initially denied any wrongdoing to police but pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual activity with a 13-year-old boy.
A court in Truro, in Cornwall, England, heard that Hambley sought friendship with the young boy – but she turned things sexual when he said he might be gay.
“I am going to prove you are not gay,” she replied as she led him to a bedroom, the Truro Crown Court heard.
Hambley encouraged him to drink alcohol and smoke and began kissing him, Cornwall Live reported. “He told her to stop but she just ignored him,” Heather Hope, prosecuting, said.
“[The victim] said she didn’t use a condom on him and kept telling him she loved him and wanted to get pregnant by him. Prior to this, he had never had sex before.”
The sexual abuse became almost daily over a period of nine months between 2018 and 2019 as she treated him as an “adult partner” after four weeks of friendship.
Hambley sent him explicit photographs of herself which she claimed she also sent to dating website users.
In one alarming moment, the court heard that a neighbour of Hambley’s knocked on the door to find both Hambley and the boy opening the door in dressing gowns, “love bites on their necks”. Concerned, the neighbour filed an anonymous report to Childline.
The boy “did not have the courage to tell anyone” but eventually confided to his mother and a social worker that Hambley had done “bad things” to him.
In a victim statement, he said: “I don’t see myself ever being happy again. It has destroyed me. I have changed everything about myself, and nothing for the better.
“I have self-harmed and go weeks without sleep. I took overdoses with the intention to take my own life.”
Rupert Taylor, defending, said Hambley was a “lonely and unhappy” person “suffering from anxiety and depression”.
“She has succumbed to her desire, borne out of loneliness,” he added.
Judge Anna Richardson said Hambley groomed the boy in a deeply unsettling breach of trust. “There is very distorted thinking, that he had all the control and manipulated you,” she said.
“You were the adult in this situation.”
Hambley was sentenced to seven and a half years. She will remain on the Sex Offenders’ Register for life.
The legal definition of rape in England and Wales is when someone internationally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person with their penis without the other person’s consent.
