Pervert pensioner who abused three young girls is jailed for 18 years

Jailing the 67-year-old at Newry Crown Court, Judge Gordon Kerr KC said he was satisfied that given the facts and nature of the abuse, the offences “can properly be described as a campaign of rape” against the young girl.

He said the offences committed against the victims, all of whom watched proceedings by videolink, had multiple aggravating factors adding that given the defendant’s continued protests of innocence, there was little by way of mitigation.

At the end of his trial last year the pensioner, who cannot be identified in order to protect the victims, was convicted on 19 sex offences including 12 counts of indecent assault, three each of rape and buggery and one of attempted rape, all committed on various dates between 6 April 1971 and 8 October 1999.

Judge Kerr recounted how the two other girls were both around 10-years-old when he began to sexually abuse them.

The abuse they endured amounted to inappropriate touching.

The most serious abuse, said the judge, was committed against the first young girl who he began to rape and bugger when she was just five-years-old.

Other abuse, including forced sex acts and inappropriate touching, all occurred in her own home “where she was entitled to have felt safe.”

While the offending had caused a high degree of harm to each of the victims, the young girl had been affected the worst and has been left suffering from chronic PTSD and a diagnosis of emotionally unstable personality disorder.

Judge Kerr said that in addition to the rape and abuse at the hands of the man, an ordeal she had to relive during the trial, she had had also suffered “emotional neglect from her mother” so a “cocktail for disorder was created.”

He revealed that despite the jury verdicts and the evidence from three separate victims the pervert pensioner maintains his innocence “and intends to appeal the verdicts”

The judge told the defendant, who appeared at court by videolink from prison, that if he had admitted his guilt “even at this late stage,” he would have reduced the sentence but outside of the fact the last offence was more than 20 years ago, there was little credit in the pervert’s favour.

Imposing the 18 year sentence, Judge Kerr said he had been asked to also consider a Sexual Offences Prevention Order but he said given the length of sentence which means that the pensioner “will either be in jail or under supervision” for the next 18 years, in addition to him having to be on the sex offenders register for the rest of his life, “I do not think such an order is necessary.”