March 2016 Paedophile who groomed 12-year-old girl driving horse drawn carriage for kids’ proms We were contacted by a member of our page over this offender. So we ran an investigation to make sure the allegations were true. They were & with our help he has now been exposed by the Sunday Mirror. Convicted paedophile Mark French served four and a half years for grooming and having sexual activity with a young schoolgirl, but has now opened a business to profit from a happy school occasion. In top hat and brass-buttoned coat, Mark French gives off an air of respectability as he takes children to school proms in a horse drawn carriage. But parents who book his service for their youngsters would be horrified if they knew about his past. Because French, 55, is a convicted paedophile who was jailed for grooming & having sex with a 12-year-old girl in 2000. Now he’s running a business attracting schoolchildren who want to travel to their proms in style. His firm Magical Beginnings offers rides starting at £350. His website says: “We supply handsome white horses and beautiful carriages for all occasions… weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, proms.” Young children are pictured alongside French’s horse and carriage on the company’s Facebook page. Horse-drawn carriages are popular thanks to celebrities like Katie Price using them for weddings. In 2000, the former farrier got four and a half years for attacks on a schoolgirl. He groomed her with warped gifts including black knickers, put his hands up the youngster’s T-shirt to “warm them” and eventually had sex with her on a mattress in the back of his van. She told St Albans Crown Court: “He would lie on top of me. It happened quite a few times. Then one time after he did this to me, he told me I had lost my virginity.” French, of Hemel Hempstead, Herts, was later banned from being a farrier for serious professional misconduct. When challenged by the Sunday Mirror, French denied he did prom work and claimed the wording of the web advert was wrong. September 2000 Farrier had sex with 12-year-old girl A 39-YEAR-OLD London Colney farrier was this week convicted of having sex with a 12-year-old girl who helped him with the horses after school. Father of four Mark French of Lowbell Lane was found guilty of having sex with a girl under 13, three counts of indecent assault, and having sex with a girl under 16 by a jury at St Albans Crown Court on Wednesday. Prosecuting, Mr Iain Wicks said the girl, who is now 14, got to know French through his work as a mobile farrier in Hertfordshire, and their physical relationship began when he stood up from shoeing a horse and put his hands underneath her T-shirt. The girl told the jury he touched her breasts for five minutes, saying he was warming his hands. She said French would pick her up from school in his van so she could help with the horses. ‘I would get changed out of my school uniform and we would go and do one horse and then stop in a lay-by and get into the van,’ she said. French would lay out a mattress in the back of the van and usher his black lurcher dog, Fly, into the front, before they both got in and undressed. She said: ‘At first he wouldn’t have sex with me – it was just touching. I can remember he would lie on top of me. It happened quite a few times and then one time when he did this to me, he told me afterwards I had lost my virginity. ‘I was 12 then.’ The charges covered a period between November 1997 and March last year when French was living at Apsley Grange in Apsley, Hemel Hempstead. The girl said they had sex on a regular basis in his van and at his flat in Apsley, and that he bought her presents such as black knickers and love trinkets. At one point, she said, he took her to a family planning clinic in St Albans for the morning after pill after an accident with a condom. The relationship ended when the girl found out French was seeing an older woman in March last year. The police and NSPCC were contacted shortly afterwards. Initially, she told the NSPCC that they were just friends and lied about them having had sexual intercourse. French told the jury the girl’s story was fantasy, and he denied having sex in the van, saying he kept his dog and equipment there. When he picked her up, he said, he was usually accompanied by a colleague or his son. He said the only presents he bought her were a key-ring and a Christmas present that his son had chosen. Judge Findlay Baker QC adjourned sentencing for reports, but said the conviction was likely to mean prison, and told French he would have to register as a sex offender.