March 2011 Abuser’s early release ‘would be a huge insult’ SERIAL child sex offender Eugene Hughes is seeking release from prison after serving less than half his sentence. The former judo instructor, who was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in 2008 for eight counts of indecent assault on children, unsuccessfully applied for parole last year and is eligible and expected to re-apply in September. His potential release after just three years is a total insult to his victims, said one woman, whose life has been devastated by Hughes’s abuse. ‘This man completely ruined my life, totally. There isn’t a single area of my life that hasn’t been affected by what he did. He destroyed me,’ said the 35-year-old, who was told of Hughes’s failed parole application through the Probation Service Victim Contact Scheme. September 2008 Six-and-a-half years for child abuser, 80 A PENSIONER was sent to prison for six-and-a-half years yesterday for a series of indecent assaults on young girls. Eugene Hughes, 80, admitted eight counts in the Royal Court of inappropriate contact with girls between the ages of seven and 14 that occurred between July 1987 and January 1996. Sentencing, Judge Russell Finch said Hughes had committed despicable offences and the social inquiry report gave the court gross cause for concern.  There was also a chance that he would re-offend. ‘You have shown limited victim awareness and continue to express that you had no sexual satisfaction while undertaking these abuses,’ he said. ‘Your attitude is typical of those who commit these sort of offences against children.’ A five-year extension order to the sentence would be imposed on Hughes’s release and, if he breached certain conditions, he would be returned to jail. Details of the offences given to the court were shocking and too graphic for publication.