‘Low life scum’ sex offender jailed again for contacting Plymouth victim.

A pervert jailed for a decade for sexually abusing underage girls has been handed more time behind bars for writing a letter to one of his victims.

Dale Hewitt, aged 27, was branded a “low life scum” by the mum of one of the schoolgirls – who were driven to cut themselves or attempt suicide.

He was jailed last year for ten years for a string of sex offences, many committed after he plied his victims with drugs.

Hewitt, now at HMP Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight, wrote a letter which was delivered to the home of one of the girls a month after he was sentenced.

He appeared at Plymouth Crown Court via videolink to admit breaching the order banning him from contacting the girl.

James Targhidissian, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said she received a letter addressed to someone else, but clearly in Hewitt’s handwriting and directed at her, in August last year.

He added she told police she “went as white as a ghost”.

Mr Targhidissian said the letter was not threatening, enquiring about her and speaking about life in prison.

He added she went on holiday but handed the letter back upon her return.

Ali Rafati, for Hewitt, said: “He was not the person who sent the letter and did not authorise it.”

He asked why it had taken so long to bring the case to court.

Mr Rafati said that, with no response from the girl, Hewitt accepted he would not contact her “nor anyone else”.

Judge Paul Darlow said the letter had not been threatening and had not caused “serious psychological harm”.

He jailed Hewitt for three weeks, to be served at the end of his current sentence. Hewitt’s earliest release date is in four years.

Plymouth Crown Court heard last year that Hewitt slept with one schoolgirl and touched another indecently, often after giving them mephedrone and cannabis.

Hewitt handled weapons including a machete in front of the girls, then aged 13 and 14.

Manipulative Hewitt supplied both girls with mephedrone, or bubble, and sometimes cannabis before touching them sexually. He never asked for any money.

One girl told the jury through her recorded police interview that she was “wrecked” on drugs and alcohol, but Hewitt still had sex with her at his old flat in Clifton Place, Greenbank.

He later abducted a third girl aged 14, whom police found in the shower at his flat. The girl came to his home willingly, but Hewitt was under a duty to call the authorities.

Hewitt, previously of Marlborough Street, Devonport, changed his pleas during a trial to admit four counts of penetrative sexual activity with a child between December 2014 and February 2015.

He also admitted four counts of sexual activity with the other girl between April and December 2014.

Hewitt pleaded guilty to abducting the third teenager in February last year.

Hewitt was involved in a war of words with a weapon-loving thug who went on to murder innocent New Year’s Eve reveller Tanis Bhandari.

Hewitt traded threats with Donald Pemberton on Facebook – one of several men who helped provoke the random violence that night.

The jury in Hewitt’s trial were not told of his part in the night of terror which led to the murder of the 27-year-old builder in Tamerton Foliot on New Year’s Day, 2015.

Pemberton, then aged 21, and co-defendant Ryan Williams, then aged 22, were jailed for life just under 12 months later for the joint murder of Mr Bhandari.

Plymouth Herald