Locations
Champion Way, Oxford, Oxfordshire, OX4
Description
A girl groomed by a predatory paedophile when she was still in primary school branded him the ‘monster under the bed’.
Kieran Whiting, 38, began his ‘campaign’ of sick abuse when the victim was still in primary school, bending her to his will by promising to buy her confectionery from the shop and telling her that he would be ‘done in a minute’.
He posed the child in order to both take photographs of her on his mobile phone and to perform sexual acts in front of her.
On Tuesday, Oxford Crown Court heard that his sexual abuse of the child stopped for around a year when he moved to Yorkshire.
But when he returned to Oxford around a year later, he molested the girl a final time – telling the now teenager ‘this is how you lose friends’ in reply to her repeated pleas that he stop.
The abuse came to light after the girl told a friend, her mother learned of the allegations and called the police.
In a victim personal statement read to Judge Nigel Daly by prosecutor Lauren Sales, the girl said she had seen a video on social media about a ‘monster under the bed’.
She had tried to find the film again so she could show the judge ‘what I mean’.
“He is my monster under the bed,” the girl said of the defendant.
She said of the abuse: “He kept coming back I thought it would never end. I think without me telling someone he would have raped me.”
The girl said she had suffered significant mental health problems as a result of the abuse and had made an attempt on her life.
Whiting, of Champion Way, Oxford, was found guilty in January of assault of a child under-13 by penetration, causing a child under-13 to engage in sexual activity and causing a child to engage in sexual activity. He had no previous convictions.
Jailing him for 16 years and imposing an extended four-year licence period, Judge Daly quoted the probation officer who had written the pre-sentence report, which described the defendant as being ‘utterly remorseless’ and without regard for the ‘legal or moral considerations’ in the pursuit of his own sexual gratification.
“Preventing Mr Whiting from reoffending will not be a straightforward task,” the probation officer added. He concluded the defendant posed a high risk of causing harm to children in the future.
Judge Daly said: “Essentially, I agree with the conclusions that are made by the probation officer.”
The judge said Whiting had groomed the girl and betrayed her trust to ‘satisfy his deviant sexual [interest]’. There were elements of ‘humiliation and degradation’ in the defendant’s treatment of his victim, he added.
He told the defendant there was ‘no real mitigation’ that could be said in his support.
A statement from the detective in charge of taking the case to court, which was read to the judge, said that Whiting had begun relationships with three different women while he was awaiting trial.
All three – each of them single mums with young daughters – were unaware of the charges he faced until they were contacted by the police.
Whiting was given an indefinite sexual harm prevention order and restraining order preventing him from contacting his victim or her mother. He will remain on the sex offender register for life.