March 2012 Former scout leader jailed for 20-year paedophile rampage A FORMER school teacher and Scout leader from Skelmersdale who raped a young girl and sexually assaulted six others has been jailed for eight years. Lee Furber, of Willow Hey, was jailed at Chester Crown Court last Friday (March 16) after pleading guilty to 25 child sex offences spanning two decades while living in Chester. DC Brendan Crilley of Cheshire Constabulary, one of the police officers who investigated Furber’s activities, said: “Lee Furber is a sexual predator who placed himself in positions of trust for the purpose of seducing vulnerable young girls with the selfish aim of satisfying his own sexual gratification. ”By his actions, he betrayed the trust of his own family, the families of victims and most especially of the innocent children, girls as young as eight years old, whom he committed offences against over a 20- year period.  Unfortunately for Mr Furber, those same vulnerable girls, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, found the courage to stand against him, to make a complaint to Cheshire Police so that the perverted desires he had could no longer threaten other children. He now faces eight years imprisonment and life on the sex offenders’ register.“ The Cheshire police investigation into Furber began in September 2010 when one of his victims, just eight years old at the time of the offences and now an adult, came forward to police when Furber made contact with her via a social networking site.  It emerged that six girls had been subject to longstanding sexual abuse between 1992 and 2009, three of whom were identified by photographs recovered during the police investigation.  Furber during his reign of abuse held various positions of trust including, school teacher, Scout Leader and was also employed as a carer for vulnerable adults. Officers said that Furber, who was in his late twenties at the time of the first string of offences, groomed his teenage victims by befriending them and showering them with compliments and gifts. He then progressed to plying them with alcohol, taking them to nightclubs, encouraging them to dress in provocative underwear he had purchased for them, and took indecent photographs of the victims.  He was arrested in 2010 by officers from Cheshire Constabulary’s CID Public Protection Unit following their investigation. Furber has also been made to sign the Sex Offenders Register for life.