June 2002 Paedophile given a families `ban’ Sex abuse charges date back 30 years A PAEDOPHILE who admitted abusing children in Cardiff almost 30 years ago has been ordered by a judge never again to spend time with a family. Noel Prior, 60, escaped a jail sentence after a court was told he had served terms in prison about the same time as these offences were committed for abusing youngsters in other parts of the country. The Cardiff incidents came to the attention of the police only this year, when his two victims, now grown up, met in a pub and confessed to each other what had happened to them at his hands. South Wales Police travelled to Lancashire where Prior now lives and arrested him in January. Prosecutor Jane Crawley told Cardiff Crown Court: “He told them he could not remember much about it but accepted it had happened.” Prior, of Merton Street, Burnley, pleaded guilty to two charges of indecent assault although the victims have claimed incidents had occurred on many occasions. He was said to have spent his life as a loner, making friends with families in places he lived. Judge Michael Burr said: “You gained the confidence of their children and went to prison twice in the past for offences similar to these. “The children involved have had to live with the consequences and they are still greatly upset and having to cope with the knowledge of what you did.” He sentenced Prior, who lives on invalidity benefits, to a three-year community rehabilitation programme which will involve him attending sessions with a sex offenders’ group run by Lancashire probation services. He will be on the sex offenders’ register for the next five years and the judge told him: “There is an additional order that you avoid contact with families who have children, do not form friendships with them and do not visit homes where children are being brought up.” The court was told that reports on Prior from probation and psychiatric services had expressed a hope that he could be fully cured of his paedophile tendencies because he is not in denial and has not been before a court for sex offences since the 1980s.