July 2023 Wrestling fan jailed for abuse of boy in Exmouth A wrestling fan has been jailed for the historic abuse of a 13-year-old boy who he invited to his bedroom to watch WWF videos. Paul Bryant also played computer games with the boy at his home in Exmouth but exploited the child’s naivety by persuading him to take part in sex acts with him. The abuse happened in the early 1990s and started with a game of dare in which he challenged the boy to put his hand into his jogging bottoms and touch his penis. It progressed to a second occasion when the boy gave him oral sex. Bryant denied any sexual activity but was convicted to two out of eight counts by a jury at Exeter Crown Court in May. Bryant, aged 56, now of Bampton Street, Tiverton, denied but was found guilty of indecent assault and indecency with a child. He was jailed for seven years and put on the sex offenders’ register for life by Judge Neil Davey, KC, sitting at Plymouth Crown Court. The judge told him: “The boy was particularly vulnerable due to his personal circumstances, being on his own in your room with a grown-up. He was particularly naïve and did not recognise that he was being taken advantage of.” During a week-long trial, the court heard that the boy, now an adult, made a series of allegations in a video recorded police interview in 2019. He said he went to Bryant’s small back bedroom in the home where he lived with his parents in Broadpark Road, Exmouth, and watched WWF wrestling videos with him.