Taunton Crown Court (Picture Alamy)

A woman has been spared jail after tying to get pregnant by a child.

Hannah Cox, 29, said she was coerced into having intercourse with the vulnerable 13-year-old three times to try and conceive.

A court heard that the boy was vulnerable and had learning difficulties and ADHD.

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Her boyfriend forced her to carry out the acts on the boy between October and November 2013 at their home.


Prosecutor Jenny Talentine said that Cox admitted what had happened to a friend and rumours eventually reached the boy’s mother.

Cox told police: ‘I know it’s about me having sex with a 13-year-old. I know I shouldn’t have done it.’



She told the police she had been trying to get pregnant and it had been her partner who told her to sleep with the boy.

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Taunton Crown Court heard that Cox had physical and mental disabilities and was in an abusive relationship.

Speaking on behalf Rebecca Bradberry said: ‘All I can ask is a plea of mercy and a suspended sentence for my client. There are grave concerns for her vulnerabilities if she were sent to prison.’

Sentencing Cox, Judge David Ticehurst said they were very serious offences but ‘justice should be tempered by mercy’.

He said: ‘There is no doubt this young boy and his family are suffering the consequences of your behaviour.

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‘You should have known better and he was a particularly vulnerable child. But I intend to depart from the guidelines in this case.

‘You have considerable physical and mental difficulties and I am satisfied you were under the control and influence of your partner at the time of the offences.

‘I do not consider that the public needs protection from you. In fact, if there had been more support for you, I do not believe these offences would have been committed at all.

‘Judges are allowed to temper justice with mercy and this is what I’m going to do in this case.’

He sentenced Cox, of Wellington, Somerset, to two years in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered her to sign the sexual offenders’ register for 10 years.