November 2003

Judge jails paedophile and puts life-ban on child contact

A PAEDOPHILE who was once in charge of a home for youngsters was yesterday jailed for six years and given a ban from any contact with children for the rest of his life.

Judge Huw Daniel said at Caernarfon crown court that John Barnett, 54, had in fact ‘groomed’ an eight-year-old boy, and he was pleased that Parliament was now to make this a specific offence. Barnett has to sign the sex offenders’ register for life.

The six year term was for indecently assaulting the boy, and he was given three months concurrently for making an indecent pseudo-photograph.

Barnett was also given a nine months concurrent jail sentence for dangerous driving, having driven at speeds of up to 100mph, sometimes on the hard shoulder, in an attempt to evade pursuing police on the M6 and M5 at Birmingham. He was banned from driving for three years and must take an extended test before driving again.

Barrister John Philpotts, prosecuting, said the pseudo image had been discovered in a scrapbook when police searched his home after he had falsely confessed to murder. Barnett, who had formerly lived at Holyhead, Anglesey and at King’s Crescent, Barmouth in Gwynedd, had suggested that the fake image was a way of preventing him taking his sexual liking for boys any further.

Mr Philpotts said Barnett had been put on probation for three years in 1971 for indecent assault on a boy and gross indecency when he was acting superintendent of a children’s home at Hackney, London. He had been jailed for a year at Canterbury crown court in 1990 for attempted gross indecency with a boy and for persuading two children to live with him without the consent of their parents.

John Hedgecoe, defending, said Barnett admitted to being a paedophile, and before the indecent assault he had sought psychiatric help. He claimed that seeing people being killed when he served in the army in Northern Ireland in the 1970s had led to mental problems.

Judge Daniel said hopefully, while in prison, Barnett would be able to take a sex offenders’ course ‘but whether that makes any difference to a man who’s a paedophile, I don’t know. But I think he should be given the opportunity.’

Sentencing Barnett, who pleaded guilty to all charges, to a six years extended sentence, he directed that there should be ‘no contact with any children for the remainder of your life, and certainly not to work anywhere near young children – a blanket ban on any contact.’