November 2016 Paedophile who abused boys on Selby Canal is jailed for 10 years A paedophile who robbed two ten-year-old boys of their childhood by his “debauched” sexual crimes has been jailed for ten years. York Crown Court heard Neil Gilpin, 32, took them away from their playmates to sexually abuse them in woodland near where he had moored his boat on a canal near Selby. Michele Stuart-Lofthouse, prosecuting, said the children were called in to their supper and when one of the boys went out to play with his friends again later on the same day, the paedophile again took him away and again abused him. The Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Batty QC, said the boys’ parents’ accounts of how they had been changed by their experiences were “heart rending.” “What you did on this day was truly wicked,” he told Gilpin. “You really robbed two little boys of their childhood innocence. “You corrupted them for your own sexual gratification. I am entirely satisfied you targeted them.” Gilpin had told the second boy to pretend he was with a girl as he abused him. “Truly debauched, truly outrageous behaviour,” the judge said. He jailed Gilpin for ten years and put him on the sex offenders’ register and made him subject to a sexual harm prevention order, both for the rest of his life. Gilpin, of Manchester Road, Slaithwaite, near Huddersfield, pleaded guilty to two charges of inciting a child to perform a sex act and a sexual offence involving a child.   Cleared of similar charges in a trial at Bradford Crown Court in 2012 Neil Gilpin was cleared of similar charges in a trial at Bradford Crown Court in 2012 – and at that time branded his alleged victims as liars. During the three-day trial the jury had heard claims that Gilpin had inappropriately touched boys aged four and seven while he was at a party at a Huddersfield house in September 2011. He was also accused of performing a sex act in front of the older boy in the bathroom. Gilpin was first arrested after the elder boy told his family Gilpin had told him to “keep a secret”. But Gilpin, a black belt judo teacher who has captained Great Britain’s impaired hearing team, maintained he was teaching the youngsters about his martial art. Speaking after he was unanimously acquitted in 2012 by the jury he said he felt like it had been a case of “guilty until proven innocent.” “The nightmare is not over,” he said. “People have seen the papers and they will still believe it. “I will struggle to get jobs and get back into teaching in schools even though I’ve been declared innocent. “30 years down the line it will still be on the internet and it will crop up wherever I may go. There’s nothing I can do, I’m just hoping people read it properly and see my statement was consistent all the way through whereas their statements didn’t match which shows they were lying.”