April 2012

Child sex abuse victim tells how Redcar man ruined her life

A WOMAN told last night how her life was shattered by a paedophile as her abuser was locked up for seven years for crimes three decades ago.

Kenneth McKenzie repeatedly molested the then schoolgirl and tried to rape her during a campaign of brutality and intimidation in the 1980s.

The former doorman and labourer warned her she would not be believed if she ever told anyone what he was doing to her.

It was not until years later, when she saw McKenzie at a sports centre looking after disabled people in his job as a carer, that she alerted police.

A second girl who was abused around the same time was also interviewed by detectives and McKenzie was charged with a string of historic sex crimes.

He was found guilty after a trial and returned yesterday to Teesside Crown Court to be sentenced – as his victims watched from the public gallery.

After the case, one of the complainants told how her life descended into heavy drinking, drug-taking, addiction and prostitution after the abuse.

“Selling myself on the streets was nothing to me,”

she said.

“I had been a sex object from an early age and I didn’t see it as anything different.”

Judge John Walford told McKenzie, now 54: “It is impossible to know how things might have turned out for her had it not been for the way you treated her.”

He said that the two victims found the ordeal of giving evidence during his trial in January traumatic.

The court heard how his home in east Cleveland was an “open house” and parents were happy for their children to visit a seemingly respectable father.

McKenzie, of Fernwood, Redcar, was convicted of attempted rape, six charges of indecent assault and two of indecency with a child.

He still maintains his innocence, and told police: “Maybe they had a crush on me because I was a good-looking bloke.”

Peter Makepeace, mitigating, said McKenzie, who has no previous convictions, suffered from bi-polar disorder at the time of the attacks.

Psychiatric records show he had “delusional ideas”, Mr Makepeace said, and he “genuinely believed he was Jesus Christ”.

He added: “By far and away more devastating for him is that he has young children and his future communication with his children is going to be severely limited.”