NSPCC said the sentence 'beggars belief' and claimed Hatt would have been more harshly punished if she were a man

Crime: Jade Hatt, 21, has been spared jail after she had sex with an 11-year-old boy she was babysitting

A babysitter who had sex with an 11-year-old boy she was supposed to be looking after has been spared jail after the child's father defended her.

A court heard that the boy was 'sex mad' and 'sees it as a notch on his belt' to have sex with Jade Hatt, 21, who seduced him while babysitting him when he was off school for a day.

The judge gave Hatt a suspended sentence on the grounds that she was 'immature' while her victim was unusually mature, which 'narrows the arithmetic age gap'.

The boy's father, who is also Hatt's ex-lover, claimed his son was 'fully up for this experience' as he pleaded for the babysitter to be spared jail over the 45-second sexual encounter.

The NSPCC slammed the sentence today, saying that the judge's remarks 'beggar belief' and suggested that Hatt would have been more harshly punished if she were a man.

Hannah Squire, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court: 'The defendant was friends with the boy's father, with whom she had had a brief sexual relationship.

'He would ask her to babysit - she had babysat his 11-year-old son on six or seven occasions. On one of those occasions this offence took place.

'It was during the day and the boy was off school. The defendant arrived at about 11.30am. The boy was laying down, Jade Hatt sat on top of him, sat astride him, took off her clothes and removed his.

'Sexual intercourse took place. According to him it was fairly brief - about 45 seconds. She told him she enjoyed it, he said he had not as it was wrong.'

She said that the father of the boy - who cannot be named for legal reasons - noticed he had a love bite on his neck and read texts that Hatt sent to the 11-year-old revealing what had happened.

Exceptional case: Rob Ross, defending said his client 'clearly doesn't operate at the level of a 20-year-old' and was honest with police

Sentence: A judge at Swindon Crown Court, pictured, handed Hatt a suspended prison sentence

Hatt was arrested and pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child, saying that the boy had told her he was 15 even though his father had previously told her his real age.

Rob Ross, defending, said his client was a small, immature woman and the victim was very advanced for his age.

In a statement, the boy's father said: 'I know he told her he was 15. He looks older than his years. He is sex mad.

'He would have been fully up for this experience and in many ways sees it as a notch on his belt and is totally unaffected by it.'

Mr Ross said Hatt, who spent two years in hospital with leukaemia as a child, 'clearly doesn't operate at the level of a 20-year-old' and was honest with the police about what had taken place.

Judge Tim Mousley QC said that the case was so exceptional that he could go beyond the usual sentencing guidelines.

He said: 'Having read everything before me, it was quite clear he was a mature 11-year-old and you were an immature 20-year-old so that narrows the arithmetic age gap between you.'

Hatt was given a six-month suspended prison sentence, ordered to register as a sex offender for seven years, and banned from having unsupervised contact with young boys.

After the sentencing, a spokesman for the NSPCC said: 'The judge’s comments in this case send out completely the wrong message and confirm a common view in society that the abuse of a young boy by a woman is somehow less serious than the abuse of a girl by a man.

'The offender in this case has escaped extremely lightly and you have to wonder whether, in the same circumstances, a man would have been treated the same’.