June 2019

Convicted paedophile jailed for breaching court order

A convicted paedophile who struck up a friendship with a mother of two young children in Bourton-on-the-Water has been jailed.

Christian Gray, 36, of Brook End Street, Ross-on-Wye was sent to prison for 20 months at Gloucester Crown Court after he admitted breaching a sexual harm prevention order between April and November last year.

The order was imposed at Swindon Crown Court in April 2018 along with a 14-month jail sentence suspended for 24 months.

Gray had pleaded guilty to attempting to incite children on the internet to engage in sexual activity.

He responded to paedophile hunter groups who posed as children to ensnare potential child abusers between December 22, 2017 and January 1, 2018.

The five offences occurred at a property in Oaksey Road, Swindon.

At Gloucester Crown Court yesterday, prosecuting barrister Janine Wood said; “The defendant struck up a friendship with a woman in Bourton-on-the-Water in October of last year who had two children – a six-year-old son and a ten year old daughter.

“They travelled together along with the children in her car and on one occasion attended a fireworks display in Bourton.

“The defendant and the woman picked up the children from school and this is when social services were informed by the head teacher.

“To be fair the defendant was never alone with the children and this has been confirmed by their mother.”

Defending lawyer Robert Ross said: “The mother was aware of his original offence but it was she who contacted him to re-kindle their friendship.

“She didn’t mind him being with her children and she never left him alone with them.

“The original offence is victimless as no real children were ever involved.”

Gray pleaded guilty to breaching the order when he appeared at Cheltenham magistrates court on May 29, this year.

His Honour Judge Michael Cullum told Gray: “You knew perfectly well that you should not be in contact with the children.

“The terms of the sexual harm prevention order are clear.

“And you had access to a 10-year-old girl in school uniform.

“It is right and proper for me to activate the suspended sentence and also to impose a consecutive sentence for the breach.”

June 2019

Pervert guilty of voyeurism after covertly filming an underage model avoids prison

Ledbury shop director, Adrian Drabble has avoided prison after being found guilty of recording a 15-year-old girl for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification.

But he has been put on the sex offenders register for five years; he was fined hundreds of pounds and he is subject to a rehabilitation order, lasting up to 2022

Drabble must carry out unpaid community work.

A shop director has been found guilty of voyeurism after covertly filming an underage model getting changed above his shop.

Adrian Drabble, 62, recorded the 15-year-old girl for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification.

Hereford Magistrates heard Drabble, a director with Crystal Carpets, also ran a small modelling agency to promote his furniture store.

Sarah Hurd, prosecuting, told the court that in December, 2017, Drabble took the girl shopping for clothes before taking her to his business premises in Ledbury for a photo shoot.

The teenager was told to bring both a black bra and a white bra and that she would need to change her underwear to co-ordinate with the clothes she was wearing for the pictures.

But the victim became suspicious after noticing a picture of the inside of the changing room on Drabble’s computer while he showed her photographs from a previous shoot.

On entering the changing room, an upstairs office in the building, she found a mobile phone hidden in a box with the camera turned on.

The girl left the changing room and contacted her mother, who advised her to leave the premises.

A police investigation found footage from a previous shoot stored on Drabble’s computer, which showed the girl removing her bra in the changing room.

Drabble, of Pencraig, Ross-on-Wye, told the court that security cameras had been installed in the building after a break in a few years earlier, but that no permanent camera had been installed in the changing area.

He admitted that the models were not told that there was a camera in the room, but said that signs elsewhere in the building warned visitors that a CCTV system was in operation.

Drabble said he had put the camera in the room so that if any allegations of inappropriate behaviour were made against him, he could show the film to prove that they were untrue.

“If somebody is getting changed, then I would put it there. After they have changed, then it would be removed from the room, because if there’s no-one in the room, then there is nobody to protect and so it serves no purpose,” he said.

He denied placing the camera to gain sexual gratification from the films, which he said he had not watched.

Delivering the guilty verdict, Chairman Jane Hinton said: “Adrian Drabble says he filmed the girl in order to protect himself from possible allegations. He said he did not record the images for sexual gratification.

“We are sure he took these images for the purpose of sexual gratification. Any sensible person would realise it was not a good idea to film a young woman changing.

“To suggest it was for protection is not credible. The only possible reason for him to have done this was for his own sexual gratification, otherwise he would have asked for a chaperone to accompany the girl.”

Drabble will be sentenced early next month

June 2019

Couple who tortured a baby have been jailed

A couple who tortured a baby have been jailed for a total of 15 years.

Madison Ricketts-Devereux, 22, and her partner Craig Sayers, 32, subjected the 15-month-old tot to horrific injuries in January 2017.

The pair left the youngster with a broken arm and two fractured fingers after abusing her at their home in Ledbury, Herefordshire.

May 2019

Hereford paedophile is ‘odd fish’

A convicted sex offender described as an ‘odd fish’ had sex with a 16-year-old girl and hugged another in breach of a sexual harm prevention order.

Aaron Loveridge of Hunderton Road, Hereford, had already admitted two breaches of his sexual harm prevention order when he appeared at Worcester Crown Court on Friday.

The 22-year-old breached the order which was imposed on March 10, 2017

following a sexual offence against a child.

He breached the order by having unsupervised contact with girls aged under 18, one aged 16 and the other aged 17.

Amanda O’Mara, prosecuting, said one of the breaches was committed just a day after Loveridge had appeared in court on February 22 this year, also for breaching the same order.

At that hearing he was given a community order with 40 rehabilitation activity requirement day.

Miss O’Mara described how Loveridge kept in contact with the girl using fake Instagram accounts.

The victim first, who had sex with Loveridge, said he was ‘very clever in the way he had minimised what he had done’ and described how she found it hard to concentrate at school after what had happened.

On February 26, four days after his court appearance he hugged another girl who ‘thought it was weird because she didn’t know him very well’ said Miss O’Mara.

Police saw him with the girl, asked her age and arrested Loveridge.

In interview Loveridge said he had walked after her because she had ‘stormed off’ and asked her for a hug which he described as ‘more of a shoulder barge’.

The court heard that he had been in custody since February 28 this year.

Martin Butterworth, defending, said: “It’s a very unattractive position for him to be in and for me to mitigate for.”

He described having Loveridge having sex with the girl as a way of saying farewell to which judge Daniel Pearce-Higgins QC replied: “Going out with a bang, as it were.”

Mr Butterworth said of his client ‘he’s rather an odd fish’. He also referred to his educational difficulties and the fact he had been statemented.

Mr Butterworth said Loveridge had ADHD and dyslexia and there was a possibility he also had Tourette’s.

He further describe him as a ‘lonely and isolated character’ and ‘in many respects quite odd’.

Judge Daniel Pearce-Higgins QC placed the breaches in category 2A in the sentencing guidelines with a starting point of two years in custody and a range of 36 weeks to three years in custody.

He said it was also aggravated by the fact that there were two breaches and that Loveridge had previously breached the same order.

The judge said the last two months in custody ‘should be a warning to Mr Loveridge that there are consequences to his actions’.

The judge made a three year community order with 20 rehabilitation activity days. Loveridge must complete the Horizon programme to address his sexual offending.

The sexual harm prevention order will continue in the same terms as before but the judge made it indefinite.

 April 2019

Paedophile who abused two young girls jailed for 20 years

A paedophile has been jailed for 20 years for historic sex offences after abusing two underage girls, one aged just 11.

Paul Johnson told one of his victims it was ‘our secret’, warned her that no-one would believe her if she told anyone and threatened to kill himself if she ever did.

However, the 56-year-old paedophile was found guilty of rape, nine indecent assaults and one count of sexual intercourse with a girl under 13 following a trial at Worcester Crown Court.

Johnson was jailed for 20 years for the abuse after unanimous guilty verdicts were returned on Wednesday.

Johnson was aged between 15 and 19 years when he abused his first victim, then aged between six and 10 years.

The second victim was abused at a later date when she was aged between ‘11 or 12’ and her late teens.

Caroline Harris, prosecuting, read out victim personal statements in which one of the women described how she suffered nightmares, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks and panic attacks as a result of what Johnson did to her.

In it, the victim said: “The abuse made me feel dirty. I had low self-esteem and self-worth. I feel I will never be free of the effects of the abuse.”

The second victim said: “He continuously said ‘no-one would believe me’, ‘it’s our secret and ‘if anyone finds out I will be on the streets, in the gutter’.”

She said the abuse ‘felt horrible’, that she had lost her childhood and that she now recognised his threats to kill himself if she reported the abuse was ‘emotional blackmail’.

Johnson, of Archenfield, Madley, Herefordshire, told her he would ‘lie through my teeth until I was blue in the face’ if asked about what he had done by the police.

The woman also described how she felt ‘dead to emotion’ and was angry that Johnson had a wife because he ‘does not deserve it’.

Judge Nicolas Cartwright described Johnson’s behaviour as ‘entirely selfish’, calling him ‘controlling and manipulative’ and told him: “You knew it was wrong.”

He said the first victim felt ‘understandably but unjustifiably’ guilty when she learned that Johnson had gone on to abuse a second girl. The judge said ‘she has no rational reason to blame herself’, telling the defendant: “The blame is all yours.”

The judge said this victim would have to ‘live with the scars you left upon her’, telling him: “You stole her childhood from her.”

The judge jailed him for 20 years with an additional two your licence period because he identified Johnson as an offender of particular concern.

This means he must spend at least half his sentence in custody before applying for parole.