RICHARD GROOME SENTENCED TO NINE YEARS IN TAUNTON FOR HISTORIC ABUSE
In May 2021, Richard Groome, an 80-year-old paedophile from Taunton, Somerset, was sentenced to nine years in prison for sexually abusing boys during the 1980s.Groome, who held a senior position at a boarding school in South Shropshire, assaulted a vulnerable boy who was sent to the school due to family difficulties and had been placed into care.
The victim, who had been making social progress at the school, was victimized by Groome, the Shrewsbury Crown Court heard.
These crimes remained undiscovered until years later.
In 2000, Groome was convicted at Chester Crown Court for unrelated indecent assaults against three teenage boys, offences also originating in the 1980s but prior to the Shropshire incident.
He received an eight-year jail sentence.
It was not until 2017 that police interviewed Groome regarding the assaults on the teenage boy in Shropshire.
Groome denied any wrongdoing, but earlier this year, he was tried and convicted by a jury of two counts of indecent assault and another serious sexual offence against the victim.
Judge Anthony Lowe addressed Groome during sentencing, stating, “One struggles to imagine a worse type of abuse of trust, where somebody is in your de facto care because they are troubled and have problems, and they are then taken advantage of.
At the time he was somebody who was struggling to come to terms with his various problems.
[At the school] he seemed to have the potential for making some considerable improvements in the way he was developing.” The judge remarked that Groome’s abuse “effectively destroyed any positive work being done” and described it as “perverse in every sense of that word.” Prosecutor Mr.
Graham Russell informed the court that the victim linked his current issues—such as drug abuse, paranoia, and stress—to the abuse he had suffered.
The victim also expressed ongoing concerns for his own children’s welfare.
Ultimately, Groome was sentenced to nine years in prison, with the court ruling he will serve two-thirds of this term before being released on licence.
