August 2020 Murderer jailed again for child sex offences A man who strangled a woman to death in 1980 has been jailed again for child sex offences. John Dickinson, 67, spent 34 years in prison for Susan Lowson’s murder and was released in 2014. In September 2019 he was convicted by a jury of sexually abusing two children in the 1970s, who were aged between three and six at the time. He was sentenced at Cambridge Crown Court to 18 years in prison with an extended license period of four years. Dickinson was found guilty of three counts of indecency with a child, three counts of indecent assault on a female, one count of indecent assault on a male and another count of indecent assault. Judge Jonathan Cooper told Dickinson the abuse he inflicted on the children “has haunted them for their entire adult lives”. The offences took place in Hertfordshire and the judge said the children were “serially and relentlessly abused”. The abuse occurred before he murdered Ms Lowson in Stevenage in 1980, for which he received a life sentence. Dickinson was also sentenced earlier for admitting the purchase of a stun gun in December 2018, which police had intercepted in a package destined for his home. The court heard Dickinson maintained it “had been bought to help you free yourself from [a] blackmailer”, a claim Judge Cooper rejected. September 2019 John Dickinson convicted of sex offences A 66 year old former Hertfordshire resident was yesterday (Thursday 12 September) found guilty of eight counts of historic sex offences. John Dickinson, of Kennington Park Road, London, appeared at Cambridge Crown Court charged with eight offences of sexual abuse on two children under the age of 14. The offences were committed in Stevenage between 1973 and 1977 and started when the children were just two and four years old. The offences came to light in 2017 when one of the victims disclosed the abuse she had suffered as a young child to the police. The jury found Dickinson guilty unanimously, bar one count which was by 10 to 2 majority. Pre-sentence reports were ordered ahead of sentencing on Friday 8 November. During the eight-day trial, reference was also made to Dickinson’s previous convictions, including the murder of Susan Lowson in Stevenage in 1980 and subsequent arson at her flat. Dickinson was sentenced to life imprisonment for this crime and was released on licence in 2014. In February this year he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police in connection with a firearms offence and recalled back to prison.