Description
A paedophile subjected a young boy to years of sickening sexual abuse. The victim suffered in silence for more than two decades until he heard that his abuser had been convicted of online child sex offences, and he decided to go to the police to report what had happened to him as a youngster.
Gary Fisher has now been handed a 20-year extended sentence as a dangerous offender for the abuse his carried out on his young victim in the 1990s, abuse which the victim said had stolen his innocence.
Matthew Cobbe, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court that Fisher carried out a campaign of sexual offending on his victim which began when the boy was aged under 10, and which continued for years. The offending included the attempted rape of the child. The court heard the boy would cry and say "no" while being abused but the defendant continued anyway, often placing a piece of material over the child's head during the attacks.
The prosecutor said the offending went unreported until earlier this year when the victim learned that Fisher had been convicted of attempted sexual communication with a child, an offence which had seen the 62-year-old asking what he believed to be a 12-year-old boy he met online for pictures of his penis. The boy was actually a decoy account being run by the the police. The court heard Fisher has already been given a suspended sentence for the communication offence.
In an impact statement, which was read to court, the victim said the years of abuse had destroyed his life. He said he had lived with the secret of what had happened for 20 years, shutting out the world around him and battling to keep the demons at bay. He said he had not sought counselling because he did not want to relive the memories of the abuse, and he said it was impossible to know what kind of person he would have been had the defendant not done what he did to him.
Gary Fisher, whose address in court was given as the Twelve Knights pub and hotel in Margam, Port Talbot, had previously pleaded guilty to 11 counts of indecent assault of a child, attempted buggery of a child and attempted rape of a child when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. Stewart John, for Fisher, said the defendant had indicated his willingness to seek help while serving the inevitable lengthy custodial sentence he was facing.
Judge Geraint Walters told Fisher that effects of abuse on the scale he subjected his victim to lasted a lifetime, and said his victim "Will take those memories with him to his last breath". The judge said he could not better the three words the victim had used in his statement to the court of "stole my innocence" to describe what happened.
The judge said as a matter of law he could not exceed the maximum sentence which would have been applicable for the offences at the time they were committed, even if the modern equivalent of those offences carried a greater maximum. He said the conviction from earlier this year showed that more than 20 years after the sexual abuse of his victim, Fisher was still seeking to engage with children in sexual way - he said in those circumstances he could come to no other conclusion than that the defendant posed a risk of causing serious harm by the commission of further specified offending.
With a one-quarter discount for his guilty pleas, Fisher was sentenced to a 20-year extended sentence as a dangerous offender comprising 15 years in custody following by an extended five-year licence period. The defendant can apply for release after serving two-thirds of the custodial element of the sentence but it will be up to the Parole Board to determine if he is safe to be released.