January 2000 Paedophile jailed for 10 years A paedophile who was banned from walking puppies in one of the first uses of a new law is jailed for 10 years for another attack on children.  Clive Protheroe was considered to be so dangerous magistrates had ordered him not to talk to children, walk puppies or stand outside sweet shops. But he still snatched two five-year-old girls and sexually assaulted them as they played near their homes in Swansea.  The 43-year-old ex-roadsweeper has a string of child sex offences going back 24 years involving assaults on both boys and girls – one as young as three.

Last August, police were so worried about him hanging around parks that they applied to magistrates in Swansea for an order under Section Two of the new Crime and Disorder Bill.  Protheroe became one of the first child sex offenders in Britain to be targeted under the legislation, and the first in Wales.  But unknown to police Protheroe had snatched the two five-year-olds just a few days before and put them through a sex ordeal.  Protheroe was living in Swansea at the time, but fled to Bristol the day the order was made.

He was walking home from his solicitors after the hearing when one of his five-year-old victims saw him and told her mother: “That is the bad man.”  He ran off, but was arrested in Bristol on 18 August.  Protheroe denied the attacks and made the little girls relive their ordeal by forcing them to give evidence at Swansea Crown Court.  He was convicted of indecent assault, abduction and false imprisonment in relation to both girls.

The jury looked visibly shocked as prosecutor Stephen Rees read out his long list of previous convictions.  Judge Christopher Morton told Protheroe: “You are a danger to little children of both sexes.  “A longer than normal sentence is necessary to protect children from harm.”  After his release Protheroe will be registered with the police as a sex offender for the rest of his life.