May 2017: This offender is now in the process of re-locating to Newtownabbey

February 2014

Child rapist is jailed again for child sex offences

Paedophile Desmond McKinley aka Patrick Shields

A developer has been jailed again for child abuse after he was exposed as a sex offender while planning a £45 million rail link for Ripley.

Derby Crown Court heard how Desmond Shields-McKinley came to the area after breaching the terms of the Sex Offenders’ Register by changing his name and address without telling police.

He had been put on the register when given a 12-year prison sentence at Belfast Crown Court in 1997 after being found guilty of the abuse of a boy under 16, according to Derby Crown Court.

Now he has been jailed for four years after a jury at Derby found him guilty of seven offences against a 13-year-old Chesterfield boy. One included inciting him to engage in oral sex.

Shields-McKinley had to be extradited from Germany to stand trial at Derby Crown Court and has been in custody since July 2012.

The 41-year-old came to prominence in 2011 when he headed a company which talked about opening a railway line between Ripley and Derby.

But he was removed from the company after colleagues discovered he was a convicted sex offender.

The firm had met Network Rail, which owns some of the earmarked land, and attended a meeting at which many people spoke out against the scheme. Talks were also held with local councils.

Recorder Michael Elsom banned Shields-McKinley from being alone with any boy under 16 or from using the internet to try and contact a boy in that age group. He remains on the Sex Offenders’ Register.

The recorder told him: “I don’t disagree with the probation report that you represent a high risk to male children of sexual, physical and psychological harm.”

Shields-McKinley will be barred from seeking parole until he is two-thirds through the sentence. He will be on licence for four years after release.

Alastair Munt, mitigating, said Shields-McKinley was suffering from several ailments and feared he was going blind.

Mr Munt said: “He is a business person and has been employed, when at liberty, since the age of 16. He has handled business contracts which used from 20 to 200 men.”

He told the court that Shields-McKinley regarded himself as a “foreign national” who wanted to be deported to Eire where his mother lives.

Mr Munt added: “His mother in Ireland is in poor health and he is desperate to see her. His mother is in the twilight of her days and he would like to see her as soon as possible.”

After Friday’s court hearing, Ripley Town Council leader Steve Freeborn described the rail scheme had been “crazy, impractical, expensive and unwanted”.

He added: “The item was on the agenda of the town council and over 100 people turned up. That was absolutely unprecedented. People did not want it.”

February 2011

Railway boss is convicted child rapist who changed his name

THE boss behind a controversial rail project is an evil paedophile who has spun a web of lies to cover his tracks, we can reveal today.

For almost three years Desmond McKinley, 38, has conned colleagues and investors into believing he is the respectable head of a firm that advises the Government and is planning a £45million train link.

But in fact he is a convicted child-rapist called Patrick Shields who changed his name by deed-poll and moved from Ulster to England in a bid to hide his pervert past.

Shields was jailed for 12 years for repeatedly abusing a 10-year-old boy in the 1990s.

The fiend was working at a stable when he targeted the lad.

He raped and sexually assaulted the helpless child over four years, giving his victim money and taking him to arcades and cinemas to keep him quiet.

At one stage the terrified boy even tried to kill himself but finally summoned enough courage to go to the police in 1996.

Shields brazenly denied his allegations, telling detectives the youngster reported him because he was angry he was not getting enough attention.

But a jury saw through his wicked lies and he was jailed in 1997.

He was also put on the Sex Offenders Register.

Shields served just over half his sentence before he was freed in 2004.

He changed his name to McKinley in 2008 and moved from Belfast to Loughborough, Leics.

But he did not tell the police breaking the law on sex crimes.

McKinley became managing director of CES Group Partnership, which is now embroiled in a furious public row about a £45million plan for a rail link between Ripley and Derby.

Last month about 90 angry residents crowded into the public gallery at a council meeting about the project.

CES claim the scheme will create at least 100 jobs and speed up commuter travel.

But one protester said the proposal belonged in someones back bedroom with a Hornby railway set.

McKinley later failed to show up at a site meeting with constructors.

Earlier this month he was finally tracked down by the authorities and charged with failing to declare his new name and address.

A court in Belfast fined him just £100 and ruled he didn’t even have to appear in the dock because it would cost taxpayers too much to send him to Ulster for the case.

On his social networking site McKinley says he is engaged and claims he is from the ultra-wealthy Gulf oil state of Dubai.

His firm has given health and safety advice to the Government and is also involved in a flood defence scheme in Nottingham.

McKinley was unavailable for comment yesterday but has previously branded his conviction a miscarriage of justice.