August 2007
Sex offender is jailed for acts with youngster   A sex offender has been jailed for two-and-a-half years after treating a young boy with gifts and then assaulting him saying the youngster should repay his kindness by making him ‘happy’. Peter Yaxley invited the 10-year-old on a shopping trip saying he would buy video games and a burger. But when the boy arrived at Yaxley’s home the 60-year-old asked the youngster if he’d started puberty, pulled down his trousers and touched him intimately. He also got out his collection of pornography videos and invited the youngster to watch porn before the pair went shopping in Fareham. Yaxley, formally of Grove Road, Fareham, and now living in Cornwall Close, Southampton, was found guilty of meeting a child after sexual grooming and sexual activity with a child after a four-day trial at Portsmouth Crown Court. At the trial prosecutor Jeremy Wright said: ‘During the course of this outing Mr Yaxley has said, it seems both at home and in the burger bar, “I’m making you happy, don’t you think you could make me happy by letting me give you a grope”.’ In sentencing at Portsmouth Crown Court Judge Gareth Cowling, who presided over the trial, said: ‘You cultivated your friendship to a point where you were trusted. ‘While the actual physical contact is at the lower end of the scale you were determined and persistent and kept on asking him to grope him when you got back from the shops ‘It was clearly planned. You positioned yourself to obtain trust. ‘The boy was clearly greatly upset and frightened. For some time after he had difficulty sleeping and nightmares.’ In appealing for a lesser sentence the court was told how Yaxley had lost his home and job and continues to deny the offences Yaxley was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for meeting a child and two-and-a-half years for sexual activity with a child, to run concurrently. He was placed on the sexual offenders’ register and banned from working with children indefinitely.