Barry Walton 62

Description

An Oxford college kitchen porter who molested two girls in the woods has been jailed for four years – as his victims told the Cowley man they just wanted him to accept he had done wrong.

Barry Walton, 61, who worked in the Hertford College kitchens, used a ‘thorny stick’ to sexually assault one of the girls, and sought to bribe her with sweets and money.

He later sexually assaulted the younger girl in Spindleberry Park, Blackbird Leys, telling her to sit on him.

In a victim impact statement read to Oxford Crown Court on Friday (June 16) by prosecutor Gabrielle McAvock, the older girl said: “Because of what he did we never got a normal childhood.”

The younger child said that, if she did wrong she would acknowledge it. “[The defendant] has never said sorry for what he has done,” she said.

Walton, of Saunders Road, Oxford, was found guilty in April of multiple counts of sexually assaulting girls under-13. He had no previous convictions.

Jailing him for four years, Judge Michael Gledhill KC recognised that Walton had a number of intellectual difficulties.

“That said, you knew perfectly well what you were doing over those years,” he said.

“You knew it was wrong.

“You couldn’t stop yourself doing it and you carried on time after time, knowing what you were doing was wrong.

“And the consequences have been dreadful. You have heard the victim impact statements read of both your victims this morning. They make chilling listening.”

Paul Mason, defending, asked the judge to ‘take seriously’ the concerns raised in a psychological report about his client’s intellectual difficulties.

In the report, Walton was described as an ‘extremely naïve individual who lacked the self-confidence and intellectual prowess to protect himself in a custodial setting’.

Initially dealing with the case on Friday morning, Judge Gledhill adjourned the case until after lunch in order to read the psychological report and consider whether he could impose a community order or suspended sentence, allowing Walton to receive rehabilitative help. 

Returning to court at 3pm, the judge said: “Well, in order to even consider that route [a community order], I would have to have the assistance of a pre-sentence report prepared by a probation officer to set out what programmes could be offered to you to make you understand the gravity of what you’ve done and change you.

“As [the psychologist] Dr Wilson says, there is no point because you don’t accept you’ve done anything wrong and therefore there is no basis in putting you on any programme or giving you, in my view, a community order.”

Walton was given a seven year sexual harm prevention order and will remain on the sex offender register for life.