A MAN who got a 13-year-old girl pregnant was jailed for nine months yesterday.

Teesside Crown Court heard Alan Dawes was 36 when he had sex with the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Paul Cleasby, prosecuting, said Dawes, now 37, had sex with the girl once between May and June 2000.

He said the girl's mother had become concerned about the relationship between them and contacted social services, and the police were later brought in.

The girl refused to admit the pair had had sex, but it emerged she was 34 weeks pregnant, and Dawes, of Stephen Street, Hartlepool, was interviewed.

He denied being the child's father or that sex had taken place. Even after the child was born and he was confronted with DNA evidence which proved he was the father, he continued to deny having had sex with the girl, said Mr Cleasby.

However, he later admitted a charge of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a girl under 16.

David Lamb, for Dawes, said the girl was a willing sexual partner, and the incident was something Dawes very much regretted. He said it was a one-off.

Judge George Moorhouse said the girl would have experienced trauma by having a child so young. He placed Dawes on the Sex Offenders' Register for seven years.