December 1997
We were victims of the Popcorn Pervert …YOUR child could be next
Every day this week Darren Fawcett put on his smart uniform and peaked cap, left his home across the road from a primary school and went to work at his local cinema.
There he cheerfully dished out sweets and popcorn to the hundreds of children who flocked there to see this year’s Christmas favourites The Borrowers, Hercules and George Of The Jungle.
Nothing unusual there, you might think. All perfectly innocent.
Until you listen to the two traumatised girls this 20-year-old pervert sexually abused and molested for a large part of their young lives.
You should not even know their names. One victim and her 15-year-old sister are entitled to the protection of a compassionate law which conceals the identity of sex abuse victims to lessen their emotional suffering.
Bravely, these two girls have voluntarily cast aside that protection. They know the trusted cousin who abused them is a danger to every child. And they want every parent to know why.
One victim says: “The truth is that he’s simply not safe around children. People like him don’t change and it makes me sick to think of him in his uniform surrounded by kids and dishing out sweets.
“He isn’t the kind of abuser who snatches kids off the street. He gains your trust first and likes to feel like he has power over you.
“He used to handcuff me to the bunkbed. At first he had plastic toy cuffs but one day he brought some real metal ones and handcuffed me in front of my mum and some friends as if it was a joke.
“But I was terrified. He loved having power over us, able to do whatever he liked.”
And she warns: “He is not worried about doing it in public places – he used to abuse me at the swimming pool. It was his way of showing us he could do it and no one would help us.
“He’s ill and he shouldn’t be anywhere near children. It’s like putting a bottle of vodka in front of an alcoholic and telling him not to drink it.
“Darren interfered with me for as long as I can remember – I thought it was what all cousins did. His mum used to babysit for us and he would come upstairs while we were in bed.
He would touch us and make us touch him and do other disgusting things. He told us we would be taken into care if we told anyone.”
For years the girls kept their terrible secret to themselves. Then two years ago they heard that a four-year- old girl had accused Fawcett of abusing her.
The little girl’s mum did not complain to the police – but the sisters felt they must.
One girl says: “We had never been able to bring ourselves to speak about it – even to each other, though I knew it was happening to my sister too. I used to hear her crying in bed at night.
When we heard about the other girl we looked at each other and said, ‘We’ve got to say something’.”
They told detectives Fawcett had raped one girl many times and subjected the sister to a serious sexual assault. He was charged with rape but acquitted because the prosecution offered no evidence.
He admitted four counts of indecent assault.
Last May at Coventry Crown Court he was jailed for nine months. He served only four.
The Showcase Cinema in Coventry refuse to comment on their employment of a convicted pervert.
Edgewick Primary School, across the road from his home, referred our inquiries to West Midlands Police.
They said: “We are aware of this individual and we will take whatever action is appropriate. The Paedophile Register means we know where these people are so we can keep an eye on them.”
Fawcett’s solicitor John Oakley said: “This young man has been punished for what he did and he is now trying to live a normal life.”
None of that is good enough.
This newspaper believes the Paedophile Register is inadequate, and has been campaigning for Britain to adopt Megan’s Law, the American statute which keeps a much tighter rein on freed sex offenders.
No one is suggesting that criminals, even despicable perverts like Darren Fawcett, should be denied the right to rebuild a normal life.
But it must be done under the watchful eye of a community with a say in where they live, and a say in what jobs they do.
And that does not include living across the road from a primary school and selling popcorn to youngsters.
It is asking for trouble. And our children deserve better than that.
