A Hampshire teenager who escalated his grooming campaign against a 14-year-old girl from online contact to malicious social services calls and witness intimidation has been jailed for 28 months following guilty pleas to multiple child sex offences.
Carlo Tritta’s persistent violations of court orders—including sending greeting cards containing his new phone number just three days after receiving a suspended sentence and returning to his victim’s Manchester home—demonstrated what prosecutors characterised as brazen disregard for legal restrictions designed to protect the teenager.
The 19-year-old from Eastleigh initially connected with his victim through the gaming platform Roblox when he was 18, gradually building trust until she believed they were in a relationship before encouraging her to send explicit sexual images through multiple messaging platforms.
The victim’s mother discovered the year-long grooming campaign and reported Tritta to police, telling the court she was shocked to learn the contact originated on Roblox: “I was like… ‘Roblox? The kids game you go on? What?'”
Following his initial arrest and orders prohibiting contact, Tritta embarked on an intimidation campaign including warning the teenager in greeting cards that if the case reached court “both our names” would be “ran through dirt for the world to see.”
He travelled repeatedly from Hampshire to Manchester delivering gifts and takeaways to her family home whilst maliciously contacting social services about the girl’s mother and falsely claiming he had alerted police about the mother and brother “for your protection.”
December brought arrest for perverting justice after attempts persuading his victim to drop charges, with Tritta receiving a suspended sentence that proved ineffective—he returned to her family home just three days later, prompting rearrest and comprehensive child sex offence charges.
Winchester Crown Court heard guilty pleas to three counts making indecent images of a child, engaging in sexual communications with a child, causing a child aged 13-15 to watch/look at sexual images, two witness intimidation counts, and criminal damage.
The victim’s mother blamed Roblox for insufficient child protection measures: “It’s like a nice playing field for them with children, isn’t it? A child’s game where predators are going on.”
A Roblox spokesperson responded: “We are deeply saddened to hear of this troubling case. With more than 144 million daily active users on Roblox, cases of harm are rare, but we know any incident of harm is one too many.”
