September 2015 Serial child abuser, 76, jailed as victims reveal the ‘devastating impact’ he had on their lives A predatory paedophile who sexually abused two little girls four decades ago has been jailed for five-and-a-half years. John York (76), who has a history of similar offences, preyed on the two youngsters in his neighbourhood in Narborough in the 1970’s. He pleaded guilty at Leicester Crown Court to four offences of indecent assault. Sarah Knight, prosecuting, said the first victim was five or six years old, visiting the defendant’s then home Huncote Road, when he came into the room naked and showed her a pornographic magazine, before touching her indecently. He later committed a similar intimate act after cornering her in his garden shed. Miss Knight said the child fled home, but did not feel she could tell anyone what had happened. The victim, now in her 40s, said in a victim impact statement: “There’s not a day that goes by that it hasn’t interfered with my life.” She described feeling “devastated” by the abuse, suffering from post-traumatic stress and anxiety in the years that followed. The second victim, aged between four and 10 years old, was also twice indecently touched by York, then in his 30s. She said the abuse, which occurred in York’s living room and garden, caused her nightmares and she felt “ashamed, embarrassed and angry” about her childhood. Sentencing, Judge Philip Head said York had also indecently assaulted an eight-year-old girl in 1956 and a seven-year-old in 1962, for which he received hospital orders. In 1976 he was jailed for six months for indecently assaulting a young girl and in 1982 he was jailed for three years having abused an 11-year-old girl, during the 1970s. Judge Head said York had first accosted the second victim of the latest offences as she cycled near his home and added: “With your entrenched paedophile habits you were no doubt grooming her. “That neither of your victims spoke out at the time is a common experience. “Little children frequently feel they can’t speak out and they won’t be heard or believed. “What you did had a lifetime’s devastating impact upon them.” York, who later moved to Booth Royden, Blackpool, was banned from having unsupervised contact with females under 16, and will have to enlist on a sexual offender register indefinitely.