January 2000 CHILD MOLESTER LEFT VICTIM SCARRED A SEX beast has been jailed for 15 months for offences which left one of his schoolgirl victims psychologically scarred. Colin Wright, 39 was locked up at Teesside Crown Court yesterday more than 25 years after he began molesting children. Wright subjected one youngster to abuse which included oral sex and other indecency, the court was told. The child was warned by Wright never to tell of her suffering or she “would be sent away to some sort of approved school”, said prosecutor Adrian Dent. He said the victim suffered in later life from depression, anxiety, low self esteem and “substantial problems with relationships with members of the opposite sex” including one failed marriage. Wright also abused a second youngster by kissing her, pulling down her clothing and performing indecent acts upon the child. She asked him to stop and eventually he did – but only after warning the youngster that other people would be hurt if she told anyone, the court. Wright was not arrested until late 1998 even though the offences were committed many years earlier, said Mr Dent. He denied any allegations in his police interviews but pleaded guilty to two offences of indecent assault when the case came to court. Jamie Hill, representing Wright, who lived at undisclosed addresses in Peterlee and Seaham before later moving to a Sunderland bail hostel, said his client’s offending stopped shortly after he reached his twenties. “It would appear that he has led a relatively useful and industrious life and proved that he is capable of keeping away from this type of offending.” Mr Hill called for the court to put Wright on a sex offenders treatment programme instead of sending him to prison. Judge Bryant told Wright he would have to go to prison but spared him from a lengthy sentence after saying his guilty pleas avoided the need for his victims to have to give evidence. Wright was also placed on a sex offenders register for ten years.