COVENTRY EX-SQUADRON OFFENDER THOMAS MITCHELL SENTENCED TO 10 YEARS IN PRISON

In February 2012, Thomas Mitchell, a 57-year-old former soldier from Adelaide Street, Hillfields, Coventry, was sentenced to a minimum of ten years in prison for serious sexual offenses against minors. Birmingham Crown Court described him as a “committed, cunning, determined, depraved, evil, sexual predator.” The sentence followed a December trial at Coventry Crown Court where Mitchell was convicted of eight counts of sexual activity with children, four counts of grooming boys, one count of inciting a boy to engage in sexual activity, and one count of assault by penetration. He also admitted to making indecent images and videos of children, taking indecent photographs of one victim, and distributing an indecent video clip of another. An additional seven offences were ordered to be kept on file. Mitchell was acquitted of charges including rape, incitement to rape, and meeting a child following sexual grooming.

During proceedings, the court learned that Mitchell, an IT worker, used social networking sites to meet his victims, all aged between 12 and 15, by pretending to be significantly younger. He employed alcohol, drugs, threats, and bribes to manipulate his victims. One victim’s sister was photographed outside her school and home, with Mitchell threatening harm if her brother did not cooperate. Mitchell also sexually abused one victim with a glass bottle, traveled to Burnley to abuse another, and posted photographs and videos online of his exploits. It was revealed that Mitchell had a prior conviction from 1997 for indecently assaulting boys under 16 and a 1990 conviction for attempted gross indecency.

Judge Trevor Faber sentenced Mitchell to an indeterminate sentence for public protection, with a minimum term of ten years. He stated, “The overall picture of your offending paints beyond any doubt at all that you are a committed paedophile. You have committed a very large number of serious sexual offences against multiple juvenile victims. You targeted, quite deliberately, juveniles on social networking sites. You groomed each of the victims deliberately and persistently and, in general terms, you systematically abused your victims over a protracted period of time. You were able to groom these victims by claiming to be much younger than you were and, where necessary, by posting a photograph which you purported showed yourself, but which showed an attractive young man some 40 years younger than you. You were able to persist in your abuse of your victims by threats and bribery, and by plying them with alcohol and drugs. The effect of your crimes cannot be overemphasised. They have been severely violated, and suffered extreme psychological and physical damage. I have no difficulty at all in coming to the conclusion that you are an extremely dangerous man.”

Mitchell’s defense solicitor, Paul Mytton, mentioned that Mitchell was “struggling to come to terms with himself.” It was also revealed that after his military career, Mitchell was court-martialed for an indecent assault on a soldier and spent time in military prison.