A JUDGE jailed a child rapist for four years, but told him the sentence would have been much higher had he been able to cope with prison.

Mark Glen’s abuse of the child over two years came to light when the victim confided in a family member last year.

Glen confessed to police when he was arrested, and admitted charges at Teesside Crown Court.

The 24-year-old returned to court on Friday to be sentenced for rape, three sexual assaults and causing a child to engage in sexual activity.

His barrister, Dan Cordey, revealed how Glen was emotionally damaged during his childhood because he had been brought up in a dysfunctional family.

Reports by a psychiatrist and a psychologist were commissioned before it could be established if the odd-job man was fit to face a court.

Mr Cordey said: “This was a young man, emotionally immature with a number of problems associated from his childhood, probably very lonely.

“He is not in the position of somebody who is more sophisticated who goes out looking for young people or children to form associations with.”

Mr Cordey said Glen did not know what to expect in prison, and that his ideas were based purely on US films and television series.

Glen, of High Northgate, Darlington, was ordered by Judge Peter Bowers to sign on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.

The judge told him: “If you had been able to withstand the rigours of prison, the sentence would have been six or seven years.

“I take from your history and background and the reports I have read, that it would be wrong to treat you in the same way I would an adult.

“You had been neglected, you may have been abused, but certainly in many areas of your life, you do not function as well as other people.

“For that reason, I know, in prison you would be subjected to a harder time than many other people... I think you know what you did was wrong.

“You will undergo a sex offenders’ treatment programme.

I hope that will help you in some ways to understand what you did and how wrong it was.”

Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, said the child’s mother had been unaware of the abuse, but noticed the victim becoming withdrawn and suffering panic attacks.