June 2014
Bristol babysitter jailed for abusing three-year-old girl
Babysitter Brian Gibbins signed a special agreement not to abuse a three-year-old girl he was caring for, after committing previous sex offences.
But he sexually abused the girl and even took a photo of her sat on her potty, Bristol Crown Court heard.
The court heard the victim was left damaged and “insular”.
Gibbins, 67, of Clover Ground, Westbury-on-Trym, pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a girl aged under 13 and taking an indecent photograph of a child. Jailing him for three years and eight months, Judge Michael Longman told him: “You should never have allowed yourself to be in that position at all.
“When on your own with her you acted contrary to anyone’s natural instincts, but displayed your own unnatural instincts by touching her intimately and sexually and taking an indecent photograph.”
Gibbins was handed an indefinite Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO), designed to keep him away from youngsters, and was also told to register as a sex offender indefinitely.
Kenneth Bell, prosecuting, said Gibbins and his wife looked after the youngster after signing a behaviour agreement that he not be left alone with the child.
When the girl’s mum cleaned her intimately the child clammed up, the court heard.
The youngster then said her private parts were sore, and that Gibbins touched her, and disclosed the same to police.
A female doctor noted the child’s refusal to be intimately examined was highly unusual and suggestive of something “significantly unpleasant” happening to her.
Gibbins initially denied wrongdoing, but told police that on his camera phone they would find a photo of the girl “running away from her potty”.
Mr Bell said: “He said he was trying his phone out and it would be among the first picture taken.
“It was not the first picture taken. It was a picture of her sat on her potty. Other pictures were not indecent.”
The court was told Gibbins was convicted of a sex offence on a girl in 1961, offences on males in 1972 and offences in 1980 when he ran a boys’ football team.
Catherine Spedding, defending, said: “He is horrified with himself for his behaviour.”
Afterwards the victim’s mother told the Bristol Post she thought the sentence was “too lenient”.
“I would get more if I went out and burgled a house,” she said.
“This has left my daughter upset. She can’t sleep at night.
“There was no remorse on his face at all.”
