January 2015
Cornish Bard jailed for 13 years for ‘depraved’ child sex offences
A Cornish bard with a “sinister and depraved” side to his personality has been jailed for 13 years for sexually assaulting five young girls over a 20-year period.
Redruth author and poet Leslie Merton, was convicted by a jury of 20 counts of indecent assault and indecency with a child on Friday at Truro Crown Court.
The 70-year-old, who was made a bard in 2004, by the Cornish Cornish Gorsedh, for his contribution to Cornish literature, sexually assaulted the girls, who cannot be named for legal reasons, when they were aged five to 15.
A number of the girls were forced to watch pornography, drink alcohol and received special favours in return for carrying out sexual acts between 1983 and 2004, the court heard.
Sentencing Merton on Wednesday, Judge Christopher Harvey Clark, QC, said he did so with “considerable sadness”.
“You are a Cornishman and you are proud of it,” he said.
“You have produced and edited books and journals of Cornish poetry; you were a bardic member of Gorsedh Kernow, a distinguished group of Cornish people who keep alive Cornish language, literature and culture.”
Joanna Martin, for the defence said Merton, of Penryn Street, Redruth, was a respected member of the local community.
She said because of his concerns about media coverage of the case he had sought to resign his bardship.
“He had never wanted that particular organisation to be brought into any sort of disrepute because of his association with it,” she said.
The court previously heard that Merton would play games with the girls, which led to sexual assaults and showed a number of them a pornographic version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
He had a previous police caution for accessing child abuse images on the internet.
He claimed he had been researching Rasputin for a writing project when he entered his credit card details into a website called Children of God.
Merton, the author of works such as The Official Encyclopaedia of the Cornish Pasty, denied all of the allegations and told the jury he thought the girls were lying for financial reasons.
Judge Harvey Clark added: “There is however a dark, sinister and depraved side of your personality.
“You are a paedophile … your sexual abuse of them has been truly appalling.”
Merton was convicted of nine counts of indecently assaulting one girl and five of indecency with a child in relation to her.
He was also found guilty of three counts of indecent assault in relation to another girl, two in relation to a third and single counts of indecent assault in relation to fourth and fifth victims.
Merton was also made subject to a sexual offences prevention order and the notification requirements of the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.
