He told one of his victims: ‘I just can’t help myself’
‘Sex pest’ Joshua Pickering has been jailed for 11 years(Image: Hull Live)
A serial “sex pest” targeted a woman and two girls during three separate incidents that formed a “clear pattern” of offending, some of it “startlingly similar” in its nature. The woman was asleep after drinking at a social gathering and he was “persistent” in trying to take advantage of her, Hull Crown Court heard.
Joshua Pickering, 29, of 6th Avenue, north Hull, was convicted after a trial of four offences of assault by penetration, three of them involving a woman and the other a young girl. He was cleared of other offences, including sexual assault. He earlier admitted two offences involving sending a threatening message and causing or inciting the sexual exploitation by causing a girl to send indecent images of herself to him.
David Godfrey, prosecuting, said that Pickering did something “startlingly similar” in his behaviour towards two of the victims and there was a “clear pattern”. The two victims were not known to each other.
Pickering met a woman on Facebook and they saw each other in person for the first time at a flat after midnight following a social gathering. “They were talking for a while,” said Mr Godfrey.
It was decided that he could either “crash on a sofa” or go home. The woman was “in a drunken state” and she told him that he could not stay.
“After 15 minutes, he was still there,” said Mr Godfrey. “He started moving closer, kissing her neck.”
Pickering intimately touched her. “She told him: ‘No, you have got to stop’ but he didn’t stop,” claimed Mr Godfrey. “She pushed him away. He was persistent.”
The woman fell asleep but she woke to find Pickering touching her. “She told him to get off,” said Mr Godfrey. Pickering told her: “I just can’t help myself.”
Mr Godfrey said: “She couldn’t understand why he hadn’t got the message. He pestered her for sex. She told him she didn’t want any form of sexual conduct. He finally got the message and left. He sent her a series of text messages.”
Pickering told the woman: “Look, I should have stopped but I didn’t. That was my fault. I will take the blame for it.” Mr Godfrey claimed that Pickering was trying to suggest that she was going along with it.
It was an “attempt to gaslight her”. The woman confided in a friend and she told her: “I f***ing woke up and he was doing it.” Pickering might well have thought that “his luck was in” and that she was “fair game”, claimed Mr Godfrey.
“She made it clear from first to last that his advances were unwanted,” said Mr Godfrey. “He was a persistent sex pest. “The defendant is someone who does not like taking ‘No’ for an answer.”
The woman made a complaint to the police. Pickering later told police during interview that he had been hoping that sex would happen and that he was drunk. He admitted “being a little pushy” and claimed that she became receptive to his advances and that she was “blaming him for everything”.
The court heard that, in a separate offence, Pickering sexually touched a girl. She at first thought that it was a “genuine mistake” by him and she “gave him the benefit of the doubt” about it.
Pickering touched the girl intimately. “She was really scared,” said Mr Godfrey. “She was really shocked. “What really unsettled her was that he was acting like nothing had happened.
“That really unsettled her. It was really weird. She felt like he wanted to force her to have sex.” The girl did not report the matters at the time because she was scared.
“She did not say anything that day straight away because she was too scared,” said Mr Godfrey. “She was trying to make sense of what happened to her.”
She later did speak up about it and told others. She did not tell the police until several years later. “She confided in a friend,” said Mr Godfrey. It was the friend who was instrumental in her speaking to the police.
Pickering admitted during police interview that he hugged the girl but he denied intimately touching her. He claimed that nothing sexual happened and he did not touch her. He denied sexually touching her in any way.
Mr Godfrey said that, after Pickering was arrested, his mobile phone was seized and messages revealed that he was pressuring a second girl for nude photographs. He was “really pushy” and wanted to meet up for sex.
“They had been messaging for around one month,” said Mr Godfrey. “She felt pressure to send the nude photographs that he was requesting. She did as she was told.
“Once she had, the defendant threatened to send the nude photographs to her family if she did not meet up with him. He wanted sex. She describes her anxiety as being ‘off the roof’ as a result of the threats. She blocked him.”
Pickering had a caution in 2022 for sending a malicious communication. He was on bail during the trial but, after the guilty verdicts following the trial in September, he was remanded in custody.
At a sentencing hearing, Pickering was jailed for 11 years and he was ordered to register as a sex offender for life.
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