Febuary 2008 PENSIONER JAILED FOR SEXUALLY ABUSING TEENAGE RUNAWAY A pensioner who repeatedly raped a teenage runaway was jailed for nine years. Bryan Kearns, 67, tricked the 15-year-old boy into believing he was his guardian angel in the winter of 1978, before raping the teenager and even sending him out to recruit other runaway boys from London’s streets. January 2008 Colchester: Man and teen had no sex, court told A pensioner accused of repeatedly raping a teenage runaway more than 30 years ago told jurors that he never had any sexual contact with the boy. Bryan Kearns, 67, of D’Arcy Road, Colchester, said he did not find the 14-year-old attractive when he met him outside a gay nightclub. Kearns told Snaresbrook Crown Court he offered the boy a meal and a bed for the night in April 1979 because he felt sorry for him. He said he was “shocked” when he later discovered that the teenager was working as a rent boy. The jury was told Kearns has five convictions for indecent assault on a 14-year-old going back to 1983. But he denied accusations that he pretended to rescue the alleged victim in Soho before raping him and taking him to a flat in Bethnal Green, east London, to be abused by three other men. “I have no friends in Bethnal Green,” he said. The retired maintenance firm boss said: “I had been to a nightclub in London in the Piccadilly area called The Apollo. I was walking down from there and bumped into this young man begging.” Kearns said he offered to buy the boy something to eat and a roof over his head for one or two nights. “He really was down and out, I actually felt sorry for this young lad. After that he said he would definitely like to come home and sleep. “He said he had been sleeping under Blackfriars Bridge.” When he was asked if he had found the teenager sexually attractive or whether he had touched the boy Kearns replied: “In no way.” He said the teenager, who is now middle-aged and has two children, stayed with him at his home in Bingley Road, Canning Town, east London, for two weeks. “I left him to get into bed on his own.” Kearns was asked if he shared his bed with the teenager, to which he replied: “In no way, that did not happen.”