Bexhill man jailed for child sex offences

A Bexhill man has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for sexually abusing a young woman over a five year period, according to police.
Bruce Child. Picture: Sussex PoliceBruce Child. Picture: Sussex Police
Bruce Child. Picture: Sussex Police

Bruce Child, 64, formerly of Jameson Road, Bexhill was also sentenced for facilitating the sexual abuse of two children by another offender who has already received a life sentence, police said.

Child himself is already serving a three-year sentence imposed in March last year for attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming, and for two offences of making indecent images of children, according to police.

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Police said he was sentenced at Lewes Crown Court on Thursday (May 10), having pleaded guilty on February 6 this year, to two counts of multiple indecent assault on a female under 16 and, two counts of multiple rapes of the same victim when over 16, and one count of facilitating the commission of child sex offences by another man in Hertfordshire.

He was sentenced to seven and a half years for each of the counts of rape, to one and a half years for each of the counts of indecent assault. All these sentences are to run consecutively.

He was also sentenced to six years for the count of facilitating the commission of child sex offences, to run concurrently with the other sentences.

Child is already a registered sex offender for life and had been issued with a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) to last until further court order, severely restricting his access to children and computers.

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On learning of Child’s arrest in November 2016 for the grooming offence, the local victim bravely disclosed how she had previously been a victim of Child.

In a statement, Sussex Police said: “The victim was a teenager when Child first groomed and sexually abused her at various locations in the Hastings area.” The offending escalated to rape when she got older, according to police.

“The facilitating offence related to Child’s extensive online contact with Hertfordshire offender Michael Emerton, who is now serving nine life sentences for a series of child sex offences relating to the two victims, a boy and a girl. Child facilitated and encouraged Emerton’s offending with the clear intent of abusing the girl himself.”

Detective Constable Chris Smith of the Sussex Police Complex Abuse Unit said: “This was a complex investigation with great teamwork across force boundaries.

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