Locations
Four Marks, Alton, East Hampshire, GU34
Description
A convicted paedophile who was allowed to work with children on a Thomas The Tank Engine theme day on a Hampshire railway and then attacked a six-year-old girl was today found guilty of sexual assault.
Volunteer George Sully, 73, known as Ray Sully, put his hand up the skirt of the youngster and touched her bottom on James the red engine at the heritage steam Watercress Line in August last year.
The girl from Surrey was with her mother, father and younger sister when some of the family went up on the engine supervised by Sully playing the part of a 1950s engine driver.
He then assaulted the girl but was seen by another woman and the girl's mother.
The retired businessman from Four Marks, had denied the charge and said he could not remember touching the girl.
It emerged during the four-day trial at Winchester Crown Court that Sully had not had a Criminal Records Bureau check made on him despite having convictions for almost identical attacks stretching back 38 years.
He had touched the bottom of an 11-year-old girl in Woolworths in Guildford, Surrey, in 1968. He pleaded guilty to indecent assault and was fined £10.
In 1974 he followed two seven-year-old girls in Woking, Surrey, and put his hand up their skirts and squeezed their bottoms. He again pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault and was given 12 months' probation.
During his own evidence he said he was in close contact with hundreds of children a day during the eight day long Thomas attraction on the railway which occurred twice a year.
He had volunteered on the popular railway in 2002 and started on the Thomas days in 2003 but he did not fill out any forms and he never told the charity about his past, the court heard.
The decision not to check his past was criticised by the police and the girl's parents.
A jury returned a majority verdict after nine hours of deliberations.
The Recorder of Winchester Michael Brodrick said that Sully could be imprisoned under public protection legislation - meaning a indeterminate sentence if he continued to pose a risk to children.
He also ordered him to sign the sex offenders register and was disqualified from working with children.
Granting Sully bail and adjourning the case for sentence on June 18, the judge said: ''You are in a very serious position indeed.''