October 2009 Kenneth Chandler, 72, repeatedly raped a schoolgirl 20 years ago A PENSIONER has been jailed for 14 years after what a senior judge said was the worst child rape case he had seen in 20 years. Former soldier Kenneth Chandler, 72, repeatedly raped a schoolgirl 20 years ago. She became pregnant twice, had miscarriages, attempted suicide, was referred to a child psychiatrist, and when she first reported it to Social Services in the early Eighties a decision was taken not to involve the police. The rapes continued for three more years until she tried to kill herself with an overdose of paracetemol, said Matthew Bean, prosecuting. Married Chandler, who served for 20 years in a Cavalry regiment, escaped the law until August last year when the victim, now married, went to the police herself. When he was charged on May 1, he said: “I dispute some of the dates, but some of the things did happen.” Chandler, of Mellor Street, Stockton, was ordered to register as a sex offender for life after he pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court to six specimen rapes and four specimen indecent assaults between 1980 and 1986. Bryan Russell, mitigating, said that prison for Chandler would be harder than for a younger man. The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Peter Fox, told Chandler: “The offences you perpetrated against that young girl, now a grown woman of mature years, were quite devastating. “You made her pregnant twice, she went through the sorrow of miscarriage on both occasions, and as a consequence has suffered, as I have read in her victim impact statement, traumatic and devastating effects. “Over the past 20 years, sentencing such cases as this, I have seldom, if ever, come across worse. Your only mitigation is that, eventually, you pleaded guilty on the day set for your trial. “Certain it is that you are 72 years of age, but you are fit and healthy and I see little if any reason for passing a lesser sentence than that which would be appropriate for someone significantly younger than you are.” Chandler shook his head in disbelief at the sentence as his victim and her husband watched from the public gallery. Commenting on the sentence, Detective Constable Fran Donovan said: “I’m really pleased with this result. I hope that this gives confidence to other victims of similar crimes, to come forward, knowing that we will actively pursue those who prey on children and young people and abuse them in the worst way imaginable. “We, in partnership with the Crown Prosecution Service, will continue to look to bring these offenders to justice, no matter how long ago the offences took place.”