Bosses from Channel 4 have confirmed that they have axed episodes of Four in a Bed after a contestant was sent down for repeatedly having sex with a 15-year-old.
Nathan Pearce was the 25-year-old hotelier at the King's Head in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Last May, he starred in the popular daytime TV show, which sees four different hotel owners rate each other and throw around passive-aggressive insults. Three months later he was arrested and charged for inviting an underage girl to one of his own four-star bedrooms for sex.
Swansea Crown Court heard that he claimed that, as far as he knew, the girl was over the legal age of consent in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales - 16 years old. But this didn't match the young girl's version of events. She told police officers that she was underage 'by six or seven weeks' on the occasions they had sex.
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After being found guilty of three separate offences of sexual activity with a child, Pearce was jailed for 30 months. He was also cleared of two similar charges and found guilty of possessing 13 indecent images of children.
The jury in the trial were left in no doubt about Pearce's guilt. The first time the pair slept together, Pearce allegedly slipped £100 into her back pocket, despite the fact that she'd not asked for anything. "He wanted me to do a striptease but I refused," the girl told the court, who also heard that Pearce boasted about being able to disable the CCTV cameras at the hotel.
Pearce accepted that he knew she was a schoolgirl, but he claimed that he thought she was in sixth form and therefore over the age of consent. He also claimed that they had been in a hotel room together but they only watched TV. Both these claims were rejected by the jury at Swansea Crown Court.
The court heard that the indecent images, which were found on a hard drive at the hotel, looked like a 'professional shoot' featuring a girl between the ages of nine and 11.
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Recorder Ifan Wyn Jones said: "The sad feature of this case is that you have shown no remorse whatsoever. In my judgement the difference in ages between you and her is significant.
"It is clear to me that your interest in the girl was at least partly because she was in fact 15. These were repeated offences committed three times.
"Sexual intercourse took place on all three occasions. On the first occasion, you gave her 100 pounds in cash. That in itself is an aggravating feature."
He added: "You are a man who sees nothing wrong in the sexual exploitation of children."
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Channel 4 has now confirmed that, upon hearing about the conviction, they have scrapped plans to repeat the series featuring the King's Head. They have also removed the episodes from their online catch-up service 4oD.
A spokesperson for the channel said: "The episodes featuring this man will not be shown again in the light of the criminal conviction."
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