Locations
Mountbatten Avenue, Sandal, Wakefield WF2
Description
A man has been jailed for a sexual offence against a young girl around 18 years ago and for having and creating indecent images of children.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said that Michael Parkinson, 59, from Mountbatten Avenue in Wakefield, committed the offence against the young girl in her parents home in Cheshire.
Parkinson had befriended the family and took the opportunity to abuse the child in an upstairs bedroom.
Years later, the victim was at university and had a conversation with her boyfriend. She talked about the abuse and decided to report it to the police.
Parkinson was arrested at his home on 25 March 2019 and his phone and IT equipment were seized.
A search of his IT revealed that he had been making and storing indecent images of children in recent months.
He pleaded guilty to causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity and possessing indecent images of children at Liverpool Crown Court on 6 December 2021.
He was jailed for 18 months at the court today (18 2 2022). He has been placed on the Sexual Offenders Register for 10 years and the Crown Prosecution Service also asked for a sexual harm prevention order to be put in place. This was granted by the court and will also be in place for 10 years. Parkinsons computer and phone will also be destroyed.
In a Victim Personal Statement, the victim said she was the person that friends came to for advice and she had thought she was able to bottle up her own struggles to come to terms with the abuse she had suffered.
But she became convinced that to report what had happened to her to the police was the right thing to do, to prevent other children becoming Parkinsons victims.
She added: I am a shell of my former self, I am more emotional than I have ever been and find myself becoming upset when having conversations with people over entirely separate matters. For 18 years I had told myself that what happened was not that big of a deal and that it could have been worse, and the release of the facts has caused more damage than I could have ever imagined. I was playing down the incident to protect myself, and its only now that I realise the impact it had on me. I have never sought counselling; however this is something I have now accepted that I need to aid my recovery.
Senior Crown Prosecutor Christopher Fontaine, of CPS Mersey-Cheshire, said: We would like to thank the victim for her courage in reporting this abuse, providing us with the evidence needed to prosecute and persevering until her abuser was brought to justice.
Michael Parkinson claimed to be a friend of the victims parents. However, when staying at their house, he sexually abused their child. He gave no thought to the impact the abuse would have on the child and her family.
In her Victim Personal Statement, she explained the long-term impact of the abuse, the mixture of feelings that surround it guilt, anxiety, sadness, disgust - and how it affected her relationships.
The decision of the victim as an adult to report what happened to her when she was a child directly resulted in the police attending his address and discovering indecent images of children on his phone.
"Every indecent image of a child is an image of a real child being abused. Sharing, downloading and viewing such images is a continuation of the abuse shown in the images.
"Michael Parkinson had not done anything to address his sexual interest in children.
To anyone else who has suffered child abuse, it is normal to only feel able to begin to address what happened when reaching adulthood. It is never too late to come forward and to help us protect other children from abuse.