Old sailor is jailed for indecent sexual acts

9:20am Tuesday 28th August 2001

A PENGE pensioner who plied children with alcohol before performing a string of indecent assaults has been jailed for four years.

Andrew Bell, aged 64, of Anerley Road, pleaded guilty to three charges of indecent assault at Croydon Crown Court.

Prosecuting, Stanley Hughes revealed how a 13-year-old boy told his parents in March this year details of how he had been given a mixture of scotch whisky and lemonade which made him drunk.

In a statement to police, he said: “I woke up and he was on top of me and caressing me. Then he put on a sex video.”

The young victim went on to describe how attempts by Bell to perform oral sex caused him to scream to stop.

Then, on May 14, a boy and girl, aged 12 and 13, were sitting on a wall when the former Royal Navy seaman approached them and invited them to his nearby home. They were given cider and whisky before he performed oral sex on them.

Police were alerted after the children confided in a friend's grandmother.

Defending, Dominic Bell said Bell was ashamed of himself and accepted full responsibility for his guilt.

“He was, himself, abused as a child by his father and his uncle. He finished work at the age 60 because of an injury and began drinking heavily, starting each morning with a whisky. This caused him to lose his ability to fully control his urges. He is now, to all intents and purposes, cured of his addiction.”

Judge Simon Pratt told Bell: “These were serious indecent assaults on children. The really nasty feature is you plied them with drink and assaulted then in a significant way. Your only mitigation is that you indicated your pleas of guilty at an early stage. I accept you had a childhood scarred by sexual abuse.

“It is often the abused becomes the abuser. You represent now, and for a number of years, a serious danger to children, especially young boys.”

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