Banker jailed for grooming girl

A City banker who used his status as a top table tennis player to groom a 15-year-old girl for sex has been jailed for 12 months.

Gary Tendler, 36, targeted her at a competition in Lincolnshire before embarking on a four-month relationship.

The £150,000-a-year banker, from Brentwood, Essex, was convicted of six counts of sexual activity with a child and jailed at Snaresbrook Crown Court.

Tendler was also put on the sexual offenders register for seven years.

Rising star

Tendler, who was arrested at the London offices of Dutch bank ABN-AMRO in 2007, groomed the girl with explicit text messages.

He then gave her alcohol and took her to West End bars and clubs before molesting her.

Passing sentence, Judge Inigo Bing told him: "Her father was entitled to expect that when his daughter went to official table tennis events she would not be molested or sexually abused."

He said the girl had been under the age of 16 and "had low self esteem and was mourning the premature death of her mother".

Eventually she became depressed and twice tried to overdose on paracetamol.

Tendler was also convicted of possessing indecent photographs of a child.