Record details
A 45 year old former nursery worker who denied having any memory of being placed on the sex offenders register 20 years ago has been convicted of molesting a four year old Gloucester girl while baby-sitting her.
Gloucester Crown Court heard last week that the child's mother was shocked when her daughter told her how Jamie White had abused her - and then horrified to learn that he had been cautioned by police in the past for similar offending.
The Gloucester woman had trusted White, whom she knew, and was unaware he had been on the Sex Offender Register for five years for indecent assault of a nine year old girl in 2003.
White had also been accused of a similar offence in 1995 when he was working for a childrens nursery, the court was told.
White, now of Atlas Close, Speedwell, Bristol, denied sexual assault of the four year old girl when he was baby-sitting her and a sibling on Feb 20th 2020 in Gloucester.
But he was convicted last Thursday (Feb 23) and bailed to await sentence in April.
The jury of eleven - nine men and two women - saw the four year old girl describe in a video-recorded interview how White had licked her on the genitals while baby-sitting.
The jury heard that White and his partner had babysat the children several times.
Prosecutor Christopher Smyth said: “White arrived at the woman’s house by himself at 1.30pm on Feb 20th 2020 and she told him that she would be back at around 7pm. This was the first time he had babysat the children on his own.
“When the mother arrived home everything seemed normal and the children were playing happily together. White left the house at 8.25pm that evening and the mother took the children upstairs to bed.
“The mother asked her daughter if she had a good day and she replied 'Yes…and no.' Her mother queried this and the young girl said that Jamie had hit her in the face with a cloth.
“She quizzed her daughter, asking if this was while they were playing? She replied 'maybe'. The little girl then said ‘Jamie licked my vulva,’ a word she had been taught about the anatomy of her body.
“The mother was horrified by this and asked if she was telling the truth and she added that people could get into trouble for saying things like that. The girl said it was true.
"The mother then texted White saying that he’d left his scarf behind and added that her daughter had been telling her 'some pretty serious stuff.'
“He replied ‘What stuff?'in a bid to get more information. The mother did not respond.
The following morning White contacted the woman and said ‘I know I have done nothing.’ He added ‘If I am being accused of something, I have the right to know.’
The woman told White that he and his partner would not be babysitting the children again as their trust was gone
I’m not accusing you of anything, yet, but I want the full story,” she said.
When White was giving evidence, the judge, Recorder Anthony Hawks, asked him “If you hadn’t said anything inappropriate or done anything untoward, what do you think you were being accused of?”
White replied: “I don’t know, that’s why I kept asking. I didn’t think it was anything sexual.”
The jury heard that White told the mother he had been checked by the Disclosure and Barring Service and that he was clear.
The jury were told that because White had previously been placed on the sex offenders register for five years in 2003 that would have been flagged up but the mother would not have known this.
The mother contacted social services about her daughter's allegations and while she was on hold to them on the phone the four-year-old told her ‘Jamie told me not to tell anyone, but I'm telling you because I am a good girl’.
“Having reported the incident to the safeguarding team, the police become involved and the young girl was interviewed by trained offers the following day," said Mr Smyth.
While White was being cross examined by Mr Smyth during his evidence he denied that he had ever appeared at the court before.
He was repeatedly asked by the prosecutor if he did not remember accepting a police caution in January 2003 after admitting a charge of indecently assaulting a nine-year-old girl.
The case had not gone to trial because the girl's father had been reluctant to put her through the ordeal of giving evidence, the prosecutor said.
Mr Smyth also pointed out to Smyth that on the same day he had accepted the caution he had been jailed for 18 months for attempting to obtain pecuniary advantage by deception by trying to get a job at a local children’s nursery.
“This would have been a significant day in your life,” Mr Smyth said.
The jury also heard about the suspicions that social services had while White was working for another nursery in Gloucester in 1995 and had allegedly molested a four-year-old girl.
However, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to take the case to court because the girl was so young and it would be an ordeal for her to give evidence in court.
White told the police in his interview that he had played with the children and said that when she had run upstairs to the bedroom he had tickled the four-year-old and that he hadn’t licked her at all.
He was asked, ‘Are you attracted to children?’ White replied, ‘No’. ‘
Asked if fantasised over young girls he denied that he did and added ‘I’ve always got on with children. I’m not sexually interested in young girls, I am not interested in children in anyway.’
“What’s your sexual orientation?" he was asked. " A beautiful 25-year-old blonde haired girl,” he replied.
White told the jury he was annoyed when the Gloucester mother told him she did not want him to baby sit for her daughter any more and added: “I didn’t know what I was being accused of. I thought that was the end of it.
“The first thing I knew about the sexual allegations is when the police knocked my door.
“I didn’t say anything to the girl that she should not tell anybody about what happened because nothing happened. I didn’t lick her when she was naked or over or under her clothing, not even inadvertently.”
Pina Silvio, defending White, asked him about receiving a caution in 2003 for a sexual allegation on a nine-year-old girl.
“I was working at a snooker club in Gloucester and got to know a particular family with young children very well. I ending looking after them on several occasions. It was a baby-sitting situation at their home when the allegations happened. I denied the sexual allegations but I accepted the caution. I don’t even remember being in this court before,” he said.
The judge pointed out to White that he couldn’t have been given a caution, unless he had admitted the offence. White said he had done nothing wrong and claimed that he had been acquitted.
White continued to deny to the lawyers that he had been in Gloucester Crown Court before.
Ms Silvio told White: “This is a matter of record. You had to sign the sex offenders’ register for five years."
The jury took just one hour and 20 minutes to reach their guilty verdict. White will be sentenced on April 5 and he was released on unconditional bail.
Following his conviction White was placed on the sex offenders register and the length of his registration will be clarified when he is sentenced.
