November 2015 York man jailed for 12 years for horrific sexual abuse of young girls A sex offender who did “incalculable” damage to a little girl as he sexually abused her has been jailed for 12 years. Stephen Paul Fligg, 58, abused the girl for years, starting when she was five and also abused her older sister, York Crown Court heard. The Recorder of York, Judge Paul Batty QC, said both are now women and still have nightmares or sleeping problems because of what he did to them when they were much younger. “If ever there was a cause for the imposition of the maximum sentence, this is it,” he told Fligg. “The effect upon (the younger girl) is in my judgment virtually incalculable. You robbed her of her childhood. For years, she was simply there for your sexual gratification. She was for you a sexual toy. “You don’t really have any mitigation whatsoever.” Fligg, of Ridgeway, Acomb, denied six charges of indecent assault and two of indecency with a child involving the younger girl and three of indecently assaulting the older, but was convicted by a jury last week. At the time of the offences, the maximum sentence for indecent assault was ten years. On Thursday the judge jailed Fligg for ten years for the offences against the younger sister and added two years for the offences against the older. He also made him subject to a sexual harm offences order which will curtail his activities after his release from prison, and put him on the sex offenders’ register. Both orders will last for life. He read victim impact statements from both sisters which included how stressful they had found his trial. Both had to give evidence. The judge said Fligg had effectively accused them of conspiring together to pervert the course of justice by making up their evidence about him. The sisters had found the “courage and strength” to reveal what Fligg had done to them when they read of his conviction for possessing indecent photos and films last year. Before passing sentence, the judge read the details of that case and how Fligg had used explicit search terms online to find images of all levels of seriousness of girls aged eight to 12 being sexually abused. The jury heard how Fligg made the younger girl watch pornographic videos and then re-enact them with him. Fligg’s barrister Tom Gent said he had successfully completed the sex offenders’ treatment programme he had been ordered to do as part of his punishment for the 2014 offences and it had apparently changed him for the better. His imprisonment would affect his family because he had been caring for an elderly relative. Until his remand during the trial, his only previous experience of custody had been a spell in Borstal when he had been a young man in the 1970s. November 2015 GUILTY: Paedophile faces prison after being convicted of abusing young girls A paedophile has been warned he will receive a “very lengthy” sentence for the crimes that ruined a young girl’s childhood. Stephen Paul Fligg’s sexual abuse of the child and her older sister were the latest in a history of sex offences that began when he was 14, York Crown Court heard. He began indecently assaulting the younger girl when she was five and continued for seven years. Both are now adults. During the trial David Gordon, prosecuting, accused Fligg of deliberately befriending the sisters’ mother, because she had young children. Fligg denied it. He is no longer in contact with her. Fligg, 58, of Ridgeway, Acomb, denied six charges of indecently assaulting the younger sister, two of indecency with the younger sister and four of indecently assaulting the older sister. After three hours and 20 minutes in retirement, the jury convicted him unanimously on 11 charges and acquitted him on one of the indecent assault charges against the older sister. The new Recorder of York, Judge Paul Batty QC, told him: “The crimes you have committed are grave in the extreme. You robbed that child (the younger sister) of her childhood. It has had a profound effect upon her young life. I wish to reflect on the sentence which, I am afraid, will be a very lengthy one.” He adjourned sentence until Thursday and remanded Fligg in custody. He had revoked bail during the trial because Fligg had sounded off in the dock.