June 2013

OAP child abuser gets 10 years

A pensioner has been jailed for 10 years for sex offences against two young girls which came to light after police began investigating him for downloading child porn.

Paul Reid, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Court yesterday that police became aware Neville John Corbett had been using internet sites, including some file sharing sites and allegedly downloading indecent images of children.

His computer equipment was seized by police. When that became known one of his victims mentioned to her mother she had seen something on Corbett’s computer during a visit to his home.

That led to further questioning of the schoolgirl who revealed Corbett had sexually abused her during a number of visits years earlier, but he had stopped by the time she was seven when he told her she was “growing up”.

Mr Reid said the schoolgirl was extremely emotional describing what the pensioner had done to her, crying uncontrollably. She said she had seen children wearing no clothes on his computer.

Through her evidence police also discovered a second girl, one of her friends, had also been sexually assaulted. When Corbett was questioned by police he said he had stopped because he knew what he was doing was wrong, telling them “I’m not a sexual predator”.

Corbett, 66, of Kingsway, Pontefract, admitted two charges of oral rape and six sexual assaults. Michael Collins told the court that Corbett had never been in trouble before.

He added: “He (Corbett) will lose all his contact with his own children and grandchildren, he will lose his home and has had no contact with any of his friends, one of whom has been a friend for 38 years but who has not communicated with him.

“It is a very bleak landscape for him when he is eventually released.”

Jailing Corbett and ordering him to register indefinitely as a sex offender, the Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC, said: “Until a few weeks ago to all intents and purposes you were an ordinary man in normal family but you were hiding a secret to yourself and had done for a number of years. All of that came out when you were discovered to be downloading internet porn.”

The judge said they were serious offences and the only mitigation was that he had stopped his offences himself and had pleaded guilty.

The court heard the analysis of his computer is ongoing.