Judge jails Barrow pensioner, 71, for sexual abuse of boy
Last updated at 16:41, Wednesday, 13 March 2013
A PENSIONER has been jailed for sexually abusing a young boy during the 1960s.
George Victor Hughes from Barrow was in his 20s when he groomed and assaulted his victim, who was nine or 10.
Both lived at the same Furness caravan park at the time of three incidents between March 1964 and February 1966.
The 71-year-old appeared at Barrow Crown Court for sentencing yesterday after admitting three charges of indecent assault last month.
Miss Zoe Nield, prosecuting, told the court Hughes’ victim, who is now 58, had a violent alcoholic father and a mother who physically and sexually abused him.
The defendant, who is disabled due to childhood polio, befriended the young boy, taking him out in his special mobility vehicle and to the cinema.
Miss Nield said the victim’s mum would often lock him out of their caravan and, on the night of the first incident, told him to go and stay in the defendant’s caravan. When he got into bed Hughes got in with him and performed a sex act on him.
When the boy went home and told his mother, she said he was making it up and tried to send him back. When he tried to tell her again the following day, she said he was exaggerating.
Miss Nield then told the court about two more occasions when the victim was sent back to Hughes’ caravan and similar incidents occurred.
In each case, the defendant had given the victim Babycham.
The court heard how the victim went to the police after receiving counselling.
Miss Nield also shared police intelligence suggesting Hughes showed a “concerning interest” in children as recently as 2007, when he was said to have watched youngsters play in various Barrow parks and offered them money to push him in his wheelchair. Last summer, he was banned from a cinema after asking an 11-year-old girl to shake his hand.
Mr Gareth James, defending, argued Hughes’ age and disability meant he posed little threat to children now.
Sentencing Hughes to four years in prison, Judge Beverley Lunt told Hughes, of Blake Street, Barrow: “There is only one victim here who merits sympathy and it’s not you.
“The offences took place a very long time ago – 48 years.
“He’s had to live with that every day. You, meanwhile, have been leading a life with a reputation as a decent man, which is wholly undeserved.”
First published at 16:20, Wednesday, 13 March 2013
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk
hope he rots in jail pervert
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should of cut his privates of these people are monsters and dont deserve to breath the same air as everyone else
Posted by mr c on 14 March 2013 at 18:40