December 2012 SHADWELL PAEDOPHILE SEES SENTENCE SLASHED ON APPEAL A paedophile from Shadwell who sexually abused six young girls has had three years slashed from his prison sentence on appeal. Carlos Augusto Guitierrez, of Shadwell Gardens, was given a 10 year prison sentence and four years on parole in February after admitting 15 counts of sexual abuse. The Columbian, who came to the UK in the 1990s, was also convicted of two further counts of sexual assault. But top judges at the Court of Appeal last week ruled that 46-year-old Guitierrez’s appeal should be upheld, and cut his sentence to seven years in prison and four on parole. In a series of “planned and orchestrated” attacks over several years, Guitierrez molested girls between the ages of eight and 15, touching their breasts and vaginas over their clothes. Lord Justice Elias explained how the Columbian, who came to the UK in the 1990s, had abused one eight-year-old girl: “He picked her up and lowered her onto his erect penis so that it pushed against her vagina, over her clothing.” The judge at Blackfriars Crown Court last February said: “These were planned assaults. They were orchestrated and Guitierrez has still not recognised the damage he has caused”. A pre-sentence report had deemed that he presented a “high risk to children” and had “no appreciation of the gravity of his offences.” However, Lord Justice Elias reduced the sentence he will face, on the grounds that the sentencing judge had not given enough weight to Guitierrez’s guilty pleas, made after he admitted to his wife and doctor that he was a child abuser.