August 2013: Ronald Sherlock, who was serving a life term, died at HMP Norwich on April 24 as a result of natural causes 1979 Paedophile sentenced to two life sentences totalling 84 years-to run concurrently A COMPANY director who gave the outward appearance of being a normal family man was a child sex attacker who prowled the country looking for his victims, Leicester Crown Court was told yesterday. RONALD SHERLOCK, 59, director of a light engineering company, was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment for offences against two girls aged five and three years old. On one occasion, the court was told, he picked up an eight-year-old girl in Skegness and drove 12 miles to a lonely spot where he tried to rape her. The girl had walked nine miles back towards Skegness before she was found, said Mr Christopher Pitchers, prosecuting. “She was sobbing and pathetically carrying a dandelion in her hand whieh she had picked for her pet rabbits’ dinner that night.” Sherlock, of Babington Drive, Leicester, pleaded guilty to six charges of rape in Leicester, Stockport, Rochdale, and Sheffield, one of attempted rape in Skendleby, Lincolnshire, two charges of buggery at Stockport and Rochdale three of indecent assault in Cardiff, Reading and Huddersfield and two charges of taking away a child by fraud at Skegness and Reading. In addition to the life sentences, he was sentenced to terms of between five and 12 years totalling 84 years-to run concurrently. His five years of posing as a police officer to entice girls between three and 11 years of age into his company car ended when a woman in Huddersfield took a note of his registration number as he drove off with his last victim. Mr Pitcher said that In October, 1977, Sherlock picked up a five-year-old girl after her grandmother had left her 50 yards from her home. He held the child for one hour 40 minutes, raping and abusing her and she was still receiving psychiatric treatment. Less than two weeks later he enticed away a four-year-old girl in Reading and abandoned her in Oxford after giving her 10 pence. A three-year-old he found in Rochdale in April 1978 he drove to a motorway service road and raped. Mr Pitchers said Sherlock used violence against girls to ensure their compliance after luring them into his car by a variety of false statements. He frequently implied he was a police officer and, being young children. they trusted him. In January this year Sherlock was in Huddersfield when he picked up another girl, but Mrs Shaw. 64. of Huddersfield. who was looking out of the window at her bungalow, made a note of the car’s registration number During an earlier stage of police investigations, when detectives interviewed owners of Rover cars in Leicester, Sherlock was among those seen. A relative was able to support an account of his movements on the day when he had picked up another child. Mr Justice Lawson instructed that £50 should be paid to Mrs Shaw for her public spirited action Speaking at her home in Huddersfield, Mrs Shaw, who described herself as ” a bit of a noseyparker,” said: ” I suddenly had this terrible feeling that something might be wrong. I thought of running out to speak to She man but realised he might have then driven out of sight. “Instead, I ran to the window, grabbed a pencil and paper and took his number just as he was disappearing.” Later, a policewoman called on Mrs Shaw to ask if she had noticed any cars parked in the area on the afternoon the girl was driven away. ,Said Mrs Shaw: “I told her ‘I can do better than that love. I can give you a number’.” She brought out the envelope on which she had written it and described what she had seen. The policewoman put her arms round her and said “God bless you. I could kiss you.”