March 2016

Jailed: Babysitter who terrorised two little girls

A CRUEL babysitter from Swindon has been jailed for terrorising two little girls with bizarre punishments.

Harvey Price, 55, forced the girls to strip naked and pose in contorted positions while he watched and he kicked one of them so hard it left bruises on her bottom.

He picked on the younger girl, who was aged only five, and subjected her to a series of humiliations which included flushing her hair down the toilet and dangling her out of a window.

Price abused the girls more than 30 years ago when he was living in Torbay but escaped justice until they went to the police two years ago.

Price, of Bellevue Road, denied three counts of child cruelty but was found guilty by a jury at Exeter Crown Court and jailed for 18 months by Judge Graham Cottle.

He was cleared of three counts of sexually abusing the younger girl.

The judge told him:”You got away with this for a long time but now you must be punished for what you did. It is despicable and incomprehensible that you chose to behave as you did.

“I have simply no idea what pleasure you took from subjecting these girls to this sort of cruelty. To them it was humiliating, painful and extremely emotionally distressing.”

During a five-day trial the jury heard how Price used to babysit on different occasions for up to six years in the mid 1980s when they were aged five to 11 and seven to 13, then being taken into care.

Most of his bullying was aimed at the younger girl, who described her treatment in a video recorded police interview.

She sobbed as she told how he flushed her hair down the toilet, locked her in a cupboard, dangled her out of a window, and made her commit humiliating acts.

He also kicked her repeatedly on the buttocks, leaving bruises, and made her stand naked on sheets of old newspaper.

Both girls told how he made them strip naked forced one to rub her bottom into the other’s face.