September 2007 Pensioner is jailed on sex abuse charges A 71-YEAR-OLD man who sexually abused two male generations of a family has been jailed for nine years. The Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman, described statements from James Ian Beer as “harrowing”. Beer, of Glebe Cottage, Slingsby, near Malton, had pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to a total of 26 charges of indecent assault and indecency with a child involving a man, his two male children and two other men. He appeared before York Crown Court for sentencing, when it was revealed that the charges covered a 17-and-a-half-year period between 1978 and 1995 and involved assaults on some of the victims when they were aged only five. The 23 charges of indecent assault, said Dr Tina Dempster, prosecuting, were specimen charges, only a fraction of the number of assaults committed by the pensioner, who also faced sentencing on three charges of indecency. Dr Dempster told the court that Beer also showed pornographic material to his youngest victims in order to arouse them, an act which finally led to them telling their mother, and to the other victims, including their father, finally coming forward. Twice-married Beer has a past record of similar offending, being convicted in 1962 for two indecent assaults on boys and again in 1997 for a similar offence and another of gross indecency with a boy. He was never before sentenced to a term of imprisonment. Marc McKone, mitigating, said that his client was not in the best of health and feared that he would not live to see his release. Passing sentence, Judge Hoffman told Beer that the victim impact statements he had read were “harrowing” and that he must have “traumatised” them. He added that it was plain that there were two sides to Beer, one the public side and the other a “callous” side. To the victims, some of them in court to hear the sentence, Judge Hoffman said: “You have my very sincere sympathy. I hope that the sentence and result will to some extent help to exorcise the demon, but having said that I realise the trauma will be with you for some time.”