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January 2016

Paedophile advised other perverts on how to sexually abuse children

A paedophile who downloaded hundreds of indecent images of children also gave online advice to other paedophiles on how to sexually abuse children.

Garry Mallabar claimed he was gathering evidence as a ‘paedophile hunter’, but Teesside Crown Court heard he made no reports to police.

Prosecutor Harry Hadfield said Mallabar posed online as an adult who was offering a child for others to abuse.

“He claimed to be ‘Debbie’ who had a two-year-old daughter who was ready to be abused,” Mr Hadfield added.

“He also claimed to be called David who had a nine-year-old daughter available for abuse.

“Several conversations took place on Facebook and Yahoo chat services.

“In these conversations, both parties went into sickening detail about their plans to abuse children.”

The court heard Mallabar advised other abusers how to medically prepare and encourage a child to be abused.

Cleveland Police raided Mallabar’s home after being tipped off by officers from another force.

“Police seized a computer and two storage devices,” said Mr Hadfield. “On these devices were more than 220 still and moving child pornographic images at the most serious category A.

“Some showed children in obvious distress who were gagged, and then beaten as they were being sexually abused.”

Mallabar, 42, of Elizabeth Way, Seaton Carew, Hartlepool, admitted two charges of making indecent images, one charge of possessing indecent images with intent to supply them, five charges of publishing an obscenity, and the relatively new charge of possessing a paedophile manual.

The Recorder, Mr Bryan Cox QC, jailed Mallabar for three and a half years.

The recorder told him: “There is considerable evidence in this case that you are a committed and hardened paedophile.

“I have to bear in mind the public interest in protecting children.”

Mallabar was made the subject of an indefinite sexual harm prevention order which bans any unsupervised contact with children, and restricts his internet use.

Mallabar must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life

January 2016

Man groomed 14-year-old girl after meeting her in chatroom

A Birmingham paedophile who groomed a teenage girl he met in an on line chat room and had sex with her has been jailed for three years.

Mark Caudery, who persuaded the 14-year-old victim, to send him indecent images of herself , was caught after she told a school mentor what had been going on. 

Caudery, 34, of Sheffield Road, Kings Heath, who had previously admitted inciting a child to engage a child in sexual activity, engaging in sexual activity with a child, engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child and two charges of making indecent images, was also ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

The city’s crown court heard that Caudery was 32 when he first met the girl in a chat room for people with depression and that she was suffering from that illness following the death of her father.

“These matters came to light and to the attention of the police on March 31 last year when she made disclosures to her mentor that she had met a man on line and there had been sexual contact with him,” said Amy Jacobs, prosecuting.

About 15 or 16 months before the victim’s mother had noticed there was something not right with her and she had read messages on her daughter’s Facebook page which were clearly inappropriate.

She contacted Caudery and thought she had ended the friendship but it continued with him meeting the girl and having sex with her.

When the defendant was arrested police found 280 indecent child images on his computer, including pictures of the victim and a video.

Judge Richard Bond said: “You are a self confessed paedophile and have been for many years.

“I sentence you on the basis that this was not simply a chance meeting in that particular chat room.

“By going into that chat room you were deliberately seeking contact with a vulnerable child.

“You groomed her over a period of many months.

“You gained her trust and it ended up with her sending you images over the Internet which were indecent.

“There was a real degree of persuasion by you in getting her to send that video.

“She became beholden to you because she thought like a child. You charmed your way into her affections, not just because you liked her but because you had a sexual interest in children.”

The judge said another aggravating factor was the large disparity between their ages and the defendant had carried on even after he had been warned off by the girl’s mother.

April 2011

Former teacher sentenced to 14 months imprisonment for possessing indecent images

A former Solihull teacher was today sentenced to 14 months imprisonment at the Leamington Justice Centre for making and possessing over 11,500 indecent photographs of children.

Christopher Davies,43, was arrest in August last year at his home address following a police investigation into the downloading and making indecent images of children. 

Graham Hubbard, District Crown Prosecutor for CPS Coventry, said: “Due to the nature of these offences and the defendants former place of work, this prosecution was dealt in a very sensitive manner and I would first like to thank all those involved in this case for their assistance.

 “Christopher Davies was in a position of trust. He was held in high regards by his peers, the children in his class and their parents. Today, he has paid the penalty of abusing that trust.

 “Although none of the children from the school where he taught were sexually abused, his actions and subsequent arrest resulted in families being put through unnecessary anguish. We hope the conclusion of this case can bring a sense of closure to all those families.”

Christopher Davies pleaded guilty on the 11th March, 2011 at the Leamington Justice Centre to 11 counts of making indecent photographs of a child (Level 1 – 11,112 images, Level 2 – 66 images, Level 3 – 257 images, Level 4 – 205 images and Level 5 – 94 images).

He will also be on the sex offenders register for 10 years as well as receiving a sexual offender’s prevention order for 10 years.

January 2007

Ex-Pc jailed for raping girl, 14

A former police constable has been jailed for nine years for raping a 14-year-old girl.

A jury at Caernarfon Crown Court heard how Christopher Davies got the girl drunk before raping her at his home near Mold, Flintshire last April.

The judge said Davies, who had become a bodyguard, had not shown remorse.

In 2002, Davies, now 32, had resigned from North Wales Police after being cleared of sending indecent text messages to another teenager.

After being found guilty after a four-day trial, Judge John Rogers QC said Davies – a bodyguard and combat instructor from Northop Hall – had tried to pull the wool of over the eyes of the jury.

The court heard how he took his victim home after taking her for a meal.

“You plied her with so much drink that she fell into sleep or semi-consciousness. Then you gratified your sexual appetite by having sexual intercourse with her,” the judge said.

“Only a substantial period of imprisonment is appropriate,” said the judge, who also imposed a lifetime sex offenders’ order.

After the trial, the girl’s mother said her daughter was still living a nightmare but was receiving counselling.

Davies had resigned from North Wales Police in 2002, after being cleared by Wrexham magistrates of sending indecent text messages to a 15-year-old girl whom he had met while investigating an alleged assault on her.

He resigned from the police so escaping a disciplinary inquiry.

In court in 2002, he had accepted he had acted naively but had denied that any of the text messages were of an improper nature.

In his rape trial, the court heard he knew his victim was 14, although he said she had claimed to be two years older.

December 2015: Glass has now been released and is living in Tillicoultry, clackmannanshire

December 2012

Paedophile jailed for systematic abuse of young girl

A Clackmannanshire woman says she is ready to move on with her life after the man who sexually abused her as a child was put behind bars.

She was abused by Alloa man Joseph Glass when she was between the ages of five and eight.

Now that Glass (62), of Engelen Drive, has been jailed for five years, brave Lesleyann – also of Alloa – feels she is able to leave her trauma in the past.

And she has waived her anonymity to let others know they don’t have to suffer alone.

Glass was imprisoned on 16 August after a trial at Glasgow High Court.

He was also found guilty of carrying out indecent acts on another victim, then aged between three and five, as well as two counts of making threats to kill an individual.

All offences took place between 1 February 1988 and 24 September 1990 in Alloa.

Lesleyann came forward in December 2010. After years battling with what happened, the mum of two decided she was strong enough to speak up – partly because of her concern that it could happen to someone else.

The 30-year-old was also given the courage by becoming a mother herself.

Lesleyann said, “When I was younger I was getting into trouble with the police and self-harming.

“But once I had my oldest it opened my eyes a bit because I thought I couldn’t let him see me like this.” Just before Christmas in 2010 she approached the police by way of a letter. They investigated her assertions and court proceedings then got under way.

Now, she feels vindicated and ready to live the rest of her life.

She told the Advertiser, “The day they phoned me to say that he had been jailed I felt like I was on top of the world because somebody believed me, and I had got it all out.” She now has a lot more self-confidence and can go out to the shop on her own – something she wouldn’t have done before.

“I wish I had spoke out sooner than now,” she said. “I think people should speak out but it is easier said than done.

“If it’s happened to somebody I’d say just speak up. It’s not easy to do but just get it out and don’t keep it to yourself because it’s not easy.

October 2015

Pervert found guilty of molesting teenage girl

A dirty old man has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in a Masonic Hall.

Seventy-year-old Robert McBride, of Merrick Drive, Dalmellington sexually assaulted the 16-year-old by touching her private parts in the Town hall on May 23

He denied the charge but was found guilty after a trial at Ayr Sheriff Court

Sheriff Carole Cunninhgame told McBride: “The court had the benefit of hearing the evidence and you were found guilty at the trial”. She described the behaviour as “aberrant”

Prosecutors wanted McBride to be subject to a sexual offences prevention order to reduce the risk of him striking again.

But Sheriff Cunninhgame ruled that out and said it was “inappropriate” and “disproportionate” with the offence.

McBride was added to the sex offenders register for six months.

He will also be supervised by social workers for the same time as part of a community payback order.

March 2015

No jail for cadet leader who filmed abuse of boy

A SEA Cadet leader who filmed a 12-year-old boy being sexually abused by another cadet has escaped a prison sentence.

Jerome Gay, from East Linton, was ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work and put under social work supervision for two years at Livingston Sheriff Court. The 18-year-old was also added to the sex offenders’ register for two years.

A jury earlier found Gay, who was 16 at the time of the attack, guilty of “acting in concert with another youth”.

February 2015

Sea cadet leader filmed sex attack on young boy

A teenage sea cadet leader has been convicted of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy in his care during a training weekend in West Lothian.

Jerome Gay, who was 16 at the time, watched another cadet carry out the attack and recorded it on his phone.

The incident happened at an Army Cadet Centre at Drumshoreland House, Broxburn, in November 2012.

A jury found Gay guilty of carrying out the attack by acting “in concert with another youth”.

He will be sentenced on 19 March.

Livingston Sheriff Court heard that the victim’s snoring had been keeping the other cadets awake and they had thrown pillows at him and prodded him to try to wake him up.

The boys then “giggled and laughed” while Gay, now 18, filmed the youngster being dragged – still sleeping – out of his bunk bend on to the floor.

The jury heard that although he was in charge of the dormitory, Gay did nothing to stop another cadet pulling the boy out of his sleeping bag and stripping him of his pyjamas before groping him.

One witness told the jury that the cadet “simulated sexual positions” with the victim while he was still asleep.

The witness said he thought the experience was “pretty shan” – an east of Scotland expression meaning “unfair” – for the boy involved.

Giving evidence from behind a screen, the victim, now aged 14, told of his shock at waking up naked on the floor. He said he still felt “sad and really embarrassed” by the ordeal.

Sea Cadets petty officer Michael Kaszuba, 51, said he thought at first the incident was “a prank that had gone too far”.

It was only later that he learned from another Sea Cadet officer, the mother of one of the boys, that Gay had shown a video of the assault to others.

The footage was never recovered because Gay claimed he had changed his mobile handset by the time he was detained by police.

Gay, from East Linton, East Lothian, denied committing the offence and lodged a special defence of incrimination.

Sheriff Susan Craig called for background reports.

November 2015

OPINION OF THE COURT

delivered by LORD CARLOWAY, the LORD JUSTICE CLERK

in

APPEAL AGAINST CONVICTION

by

ARCHIBALD PALMER

Appellant;

against

HER MAJESTY’S ADVOCATE

[1]        On 11 February 2015, at the High Court in Glasgow, the appellant was convicted of the rape of the 14 year old daughter of his then partner, with whom he had lived for many years.  On 9 March 2015, he was sentenced to 6½ years imprisonment.

[2]        The allegation was that, between 1 May and 7 June 2013, the appellant had entered the complainer’s bedroom, forcibly removed her clothes, held her down on her bed and vaginally raped her. 

According to the complainer, the act of intercourse had lasted for some time, although she could not say whether the appellant had ejaculated.  

After the incident, she had locked herself in the bathroom, and then gone to the flat of a neighbour.  She had been upset and crying, but had told her neighbour that that was because she had found out that her parents had been taking drugs. 

The complainer did not return to live at the flat, but stayed with the neighbour for a period of two or three weeks before being placed into foster care.

[3]        On 19 August 2013, some time after the appellant and the complainer’s mother had also left the property, it was searched by the police. 

Photographs of the complainer’s bedroom were taken and a duvet cover was recovered from the single bed. 

The bed had had multiple layers of bed clothes.  The duvet cover had been underneath another duvet cover and a bed spread.  

The complainer testified initially that she did not think that the first duvet cover had been on her bed at the time of the incident, but thereafter accepted that it possibly had been. 

She did identify other items of bedding shown in the photographs as having been on the bed.

[4]        A forensic scientist identified semen traces with DNA matching the profile of the appellant on the duvet cover.  

The sample contained a mixed profile with the DNA of three people, but the two major contributors were the complainer and the appellant. 

The scientist was not able to say that the cells containing the complainer’s DNA had come from the complainer’s vagina. 

That was one possibility, since they were likely to have come from either her skin or her vagina.  

The conclusion in the forensic scientist’s report, which was spoken to during the course of the trial, was that one possible explanation for her scientific findings was that sexual activity had taken place as alleged by the complainer.

[5]        The appellant gave evidence that he had continued to live in the flat for some weeks after the date of the incident. 

He stated that, on a number of occasions, he and the complainer’s mother had had sexual intercourse on the duvet cover, which would account for his semen being found upon it. 

It was, he said, a spare cover which was quite often in the living room where he and his partner sometimes had intercourse.  He had not put the cover onto the complainer’s bed. 

He was unable to say how it had come to be there.  It must have been put there by his partner. 

Under cross-examination, he accepted that he viewed the complainer’s room as “sacred”; the implication being that he did not normally go into it, although he might have done so on occasion to give the complainer a telling off. 

[6]        The ground of appeal is that the trial judge erred in failing to sustain the submission that there was insufficient evidence. 

First, the evidence about whether the duvet cover had been on the bed at the relevant time had been equivocal.  The forensic scientist could not say where the DNA from the complainer had come from. 

The scientific evidence had been insufficient to corroborate the testimony of the complainer that penetration had occurred.

[7]        Secondly, it was accepted that the test to be applied was that in Munro v HM Advocate 2015 JC 1, but the appellant relied also onHM Advocate v Donaghy, unreported, 23 May 2014, Glasgow High Court, in which the Crown had similarly relied on forensic evidence recovered from a duvet within a house.   

In that case, there was a mixed profile involving the DNA of the accused and the complainer, but Lord Turnbull had determined that the evidence had been insufficient.

[8]        In reply, the advocate depute submitted that there was sufficient evidence from which it could be inferred that the duvet cover had been on the complainer’s bed at the material time. 

Given the association of the emission of semen with the act of sexual intercourse, it was sufficient corroboration of the complainer’s account of penetration.  The circumstances in Donaghy v HM Advocate(supra) could be distinguished.  

[9]        The complainer testified that she had been raped by the appellant on a bed in her own bedroom.  She had left the house that day and never returned. 

Some weeks later a duvet cover was recovered from the bed, on which the appellant’s semen was found mixed with the DNA of the complainer, probably from her vagina or skin.

[10]      There was sufficient evidence from which the jury could infer that the duvet cover had been on the complainer’s bed at the time when the incident was alleged to have occurred. 

That inference could be drawn from the finding of the cover there at the time of the search.  The remaining question is whether there was sufficient corroboration of the complainer’s account of sexual intercourse. 

A piece of evidence is corroborative of testimony of a fact in issue if it can be said to support or confirm that testimony (Munro v HM Advocate 2015 JC 1, Lord Carloway at para [7] following Fox v HM Advocate 1998 JC 94, LJG (Rodger) at 100, Lord Gill at 124). 

The corroborating piece of evidence does not, of itself, have to point exclusively to the fact in issue.  Each case will depend upon its own facts and circumstances. 

This case is distinguishable from Donaghy v HM Advocate (supra) in respect that in Donaghy there was no evidence about which of the four beds in the house the duvet had been recovered from.  

The recovery post-dated the alleged incident by at least 4 years and it was made in a different house in a different town from that in which the complainer alleged that intercourse had taken place.  

The complainer’s evidence in Donaghy had been that no such cover had been on the bed at the time of the incident. 

[11]      Here matters are significantly different.  There is evidence that the duvet cover had been on the complainer’s bed at the material time. 

The finding of the appellant’s semen, in-mixed with the DNA of the complainer, was indicative that there had been sexual activity involving ejaculation by the appellant on that bed. 

That provided sufficient support or confirmation of the complainer’s evidence that penetration had taken place.

[12]      In these circumstances, the appeal must be refused.