A Paedophile from Lytham in Lancashire, Harold Burnett, convicted of sexually abusing three young children in the late 1960s and early 1970s, has received a 12-year prison sentence.
Harold Burnett, 81, of Lytham Road, Moss Side, Lytham, was found guilty of 18 sexual crimes following a trial at Preston Crown Court.
The assaults occurred when the victims were between four and ten years old, according to the authorities.
In delivering the punishment, Judge Robert Altham stated that Harold Burnett exhibited “no remorse.”
He stated: “You exploited these children devoid of humility, empathy, or compassion.”
“In the course of doing that you systematically shattered their lives without so much as a backwards glance for what must only have been your warped need for sexual gratification.”
Harold Burnett was convicted of 18 specimen counts reflecting almost a decade of abuse, despite having denied the charges.
Judge Altham said Harold Burnett “committed something like 2,000 sexual offences in relation to these children” adding “it is a further tragedy that you do not have the courage to admit what you have done”.
Lisa Worsley, prosecuting, read a statement from one of the victims in which he said “the abuse has had a very negative impact on him. He turned into someone without emotion.”
Louise Blackwell QC, defending, said Burnett will be a particularly vulnerable inmate due to his age and a number of health difficulties including heart problems and hearing loss.
She said: “He is shrinking within himself. He is likely to die in prison.”
She added there was no evidence of continuing sexual interest in children and when Burnett’s computer equipment was seized there was no inappropriate material discovered.
But the judge said: “Had these sentences been committed in modern times, the maximum sentences would be far higher and the sentences you would have received would be longer.”
This was back in 2015 and unfortunately he died at the end of 2017:(
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