February 2015
Bristol pensioner who raped two young girls will probably spend rest of his life behind bars
A retired British Rail worker from Bristol is set to die behind bars after being jailed for 18 years for raping and molesting two young girls in the 1980s.
Austin Haddad, 75, from the St Paul’s area of the city, groped one of his victims when she was just five-years-old during a decade of abuse at his home.
He left one of his victims emotionally scarred and contemplating suicide.
Haddad, who worked for 40 years in the railway industry before retiring to his native Jamaica, stared blankly ahead as he was jailed at the Old Bailey today.
Judge Wendy Joseph QC said Haddad has shown ‘not one iota of remorse’ and should never again be left alone with a young girl.
She passed sentences totaling nearly 150 years on the pensioner, but ordered Haddad to serve 18 years behind bars as the sentences would be concurrent.
“My personal view is he should not be left alone with a female child,” she told the court. “I can give you no credit for avoiding putting these girl through what was plainly a torture for them at the trial. You have shown not one iota of remorse.”
The court heard Haddad abused the girls between 1981 and 1991.His first victim was 12-years-old when Haddad abused her, groping her as she lay on his bed.
He raped and molested her repeatedly between 1981 and 1985, but the girl was too scared to speak up and turned instead to alcohol.
“I’ve felt that my life since the sexual abuse has made me feel alone, sad, depressed, and angry,” she said in an impact statement to the court.
“My head has been all over the place, blaming myself for what happened to me. I’ve spent 33 years in the darkness, and have often thought about taking my own life.”
The court heard she had tried to kill herself once, and was ashamed that she had not spoken up about the abuse sooner.
Haddad turned his attentions to a second girl in 1987 when she was just five, groping and molesting her in the same way.
Nicholas Wayne, defending, said Haddad spent 40 years working in the rail industry, mainly with British Rail and a ten-year stint from 1992 to 2002 with a rail agency.
Haddad successfully overcame bowel cancer in 2002, and retired to Jamaica in 2007 with his new wife.
However, he continued to make frequent trips back to the UK until his arrest in December 2013.
Described in court as a ‘sprightly 75-year-old’, Judge Joseph said she had reduced the time he will serve behind bars due to his age.
But she added: “They richly deserve to be consecutive sentences – it was separate offending at different times against different girls.
“But the gravity of both sets of offending is such that the sentences must be of a length were I to make them run consecutively that totality would be too high.”
Haddad, of Burnell Drive, Bristol, was convicted of four counts of rape, 14 counts of indecent assault, and one count of indecency with a child.
