April 2012 Pervert Portsmouth scout leader locked up for 13 years A VICTIM of paedophile Nick Thorpe has told of his relief after the Scout leader was jailed for 13 years. Thorpe, 48, plied two boys with alcohol and sexually abused them at his home between 1996 and 2005 when both were teenagers. Now he is behind bars after being found guilty of three counts of rape and one of indecent assault relating to one boy and one count of indecent assault and one of gross indecency relating to another. Thorpe was master of a Portsmouth Scout group which both victims had been members of when they were abused. The first victim, now aged in his 30s, kept the abuse secret for years until he spoke out during a row with his mum. Then he spotted a photograph of married Thorpe surrounded by young Scouts in The News in January last year and decided to act. The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: ‘I feel glad that he’s not on the streets any more. ‘It happened a long time ago to me and I didn’t know there was another young man involved. That came out later. ‘I’m still sad but I’m so glad that now it can’t happen to anybody else. ‘It’s been really difficult. I kept it to myself, hidden away for a long time. Then I saw a picture in the paper of him with children – I hadn’t realised he was still a Scout leader. ‘My mum showed it to me. I was gobsmacked. I didn’t know what to do. It preyed on my mind, I knew I had to say something. ‘I hadn’t gone to the police before. It was embarrassing. I didn’t think anyone would believe anything. I didn’t tell my mum straight away. ‘We had a row and it came out a few years ago.’ Sentencing Thorpe, of Thorncroft Road, Fratton, Portsmouth, Judge Roger Hetherington said: ‘The offences on the whole relate to two adolescent boys, who had been Scouts in a Scout troop where you had been the leader. ‘That was how you came to know them, and you had been a Scout leader, someone of responsibility within the movement for some 27 years. ‘But you used that in relation to these two boys to abuse them for your own sexual gratification.’ Thorpe has now been put on the sex offenders’ register.