August 2010 Mum: ‘He’s a paedophile and should be jailed’ A MOTHER whose ex-husband admitted sexually abusing her little girl for five years has been left devastated after he walked free from court. Marty Redgate, 51, of South Avenue, Eastbourne, admitted indecency with a child and two further sex charges but he walked free from Lewes Crown Court last week after being given a 12 month jail sentence suspended for two years. The court heard the girl was molested by Redgate from the age of 11 until she was 16 while her mother went to work stacking supermarket shelves at nights. But she was too scared to tell anyone and her mum only discovered the abuse when she found and read her diary. The mum explained, “He hasn’t spent one day behind bars even though he’s admitted abusing my daughter. What sort of justice is that? He’s stolen my daughter’s innocence and her childhood and he’s got away scot-free. It’s sending out the message that step-fathers need not fear being locked up for abusing their step-daughters. He’s a paedophile and should be jailed. I wouldn’t mind if it was just for six weeks but he has to be punished. My daughter’s been through hell because of that man. “I was tempted to go round and shoot him but then I realised dying is too good for him. I want him alive so that he has to live with what he’s done every single day.” The girl now 21, said, “I always knew what he did was wrong but I thought no one would believe me. I was too scared to tell anyone in case they thought I was making it up.” She detailed the abuse in a journal, which her mum found while clearing up her room after Jessica had left home. The mum added, “I picked up the diary and a few pages fell out, so I bent to pick them up and the words jumped out at me. I was shocked, I was horrified and didn’t know what to do. I felt guilty for bringing that man into our home and family and not realising what he’d done to my little girl. Luckily, she’s moving on with her life and has a job, a boyfriend and her own place, but it’s wrong that she found the guts to report the abuse and he gets such a lenient sentence. It’s pathetic.”