This is from a UK newspaper.

A MOTHER has said she is horrified that the paedophile who “ruined her son’s life” has been spared jail.

Sixty-one-year-old Michael Edward Barnard, who admitted three charges of sexually abusing a young boy in Borth nine years ago, escaped a prison sentence after a judge decided he would be better served on a sex offenders’ programme. But the mother of Barnard’s young victim said she was stunned that he was not sent to prison and said she would try to have an appeal launched against the sentence.

She said: “I am not happy about Michael Barnard’s sentencing as basi-cally it is like a slap on the wrist. It has made my family and myself very hurt and angry that the judge gave him a sentence like this given the circum-stances and the ongoing trauma it has caused to an innocent victim in my son.

I believe the just option should really be a custodial sentence.” She said the sentence had added to the family’s heartbreak. She said: “My son is very upset and hurt. He actually said to me ‘This is why children do not tell adults these things, as a type of sentencing like this seems to condone what the offender has done.’

“This gives Barnard the grounds to go out and do it again and again as peo-ple like that don’t change. “He has ruined my son’s life by what he did to him and due to this, even with counselling, my son may not get over it.

“My son has to try to live with this all his life and that man, who by his self-ish and perverse actions has ruined my son’s life, has basically got away scot free. “Barnard’s life isn’t ruined because of what he did and I doubt he has any true remorse, nor insight into how he has psychologically damaged a bright and caring individual who was in no way to blame and unable to prevent this gross and unnatural behaviour in someone who is deemed to be an upright and respectable adult member of society.”

Judge Christopher Morton heard that Barnard, of Paddock Close, Belton in Great Yarmouth, had told the boy to use a vibrator on him, took indecent pictures of the youngster and tried to have oral sex with him. Prosecutor Catherine Richards said Barnard confessed to the police after he was arrested.

Barnard’s barrister, Matthew Gowen, said although he accepted Barnard was charged with serious offences, he didn’t think he was a danger to society and that Barnard and the general public would be better protected if Barnard was enrolled on a sex offend-ers’ programme.

He said: “There are serious elements to this and some worrying under-tones, but he has not reoffended since and does not have a criminal record. “He has brought shame on his family, but there is no suggestion he devel-oped a similar interest in any other child.”

Barnard was given a three-year com-munity rehabilitation order. He will also have to register as a sex offender for five years and will be banned from working with children for life. He was also ordered to pay £320 in prosecu-tion costs.





Sorry about their grammar, but what can I say?

It took the kid nine years of trauma to tell, and his abuser is given a slap on the wrist!

ste

I think that statement is extremely ignorant and naive.

Since when has that been a requirement for prison sentencing in a CSA case?

Sounds like he kept the others quiet etc.
I wish the kid well because I know that this would have been
my own worst nightmare as a child, and it would lead to me
having severe reservations as to any authority.

The kid gets a life sentence, feels like he wasn't believed,
and will need to get some serious counselling before he totally
believes it was ALL his fault.

The perp gets off with the "fine upstanding gentleman" sentence,
because maybe the judge believes it is just another trivial trial?

ste