July 2006 Child rapist jailed for 12 years A child rapist from Kent who went on the run during his trial has been jailed for 12 years. Paul Goldsmith, 38, of Somerhill Road, Tonbridge, raped and sexually assaulted two girls aged 10 to 16 over four years and threatened to kill one of them. The jury at Maidstone Crown Court returned guilty verdicts on 13 charges following a trial earlier this month. On Friday, he was told by Judge Andrew Patience QC he would serve half his sentence before being freed on licence. Goldsmith was disqualified from working with children, made a subject of a sex offensive prevention order, and was put on the Sex Offenders’ Register for life. A warrant was issued for his arrest after he failed to turn up at court during his trial. He handed himself into police four days later. He was unanimously convicted of seven counts of raping one girl, and two counts of raping, three counts of sexually assaulting and one count of indecently assaulting the other girl between July 2001 and February 2005. The court heard the abuse was only discovered when one of the victims wrote letters about what had happened. Sentencing Goldsmith, the judge described him as a danger to young girls. ‘Anguish and misery’ Judge Patience said: “You forced those girls to indulge in conduct which they did not want and for which they were not ready. “You behaved in this cruel way entirely to satisfy your own lust and you have never shown a flicker of remorse. “The anguish and misery which you enforced upon those girls is obvious.” Speaking afterwards, Det Con Sam Mercer, of Kent Police, said the sentence could not take away the damage Goldsmith had done to his victims. “Our hope now is that the children he hurt are able to return to as normal a childhood as possible and that the impact of Goldsmith on their life fades,” he said.