Locations
Paisley, Renfrewshire, PA1
Description
A social care worker has been jailed after preying on vulnerable children he was being paid to help.
Manipulative Graham Burgess (left) groomed a teenage victim and then sexually abused her, watched another teen girl get changed, and drew explicit pictures in front of a young boy.
The 58-year-old targeted youngsters in his role as a child care manager within a care team at Renfrewshire Council.
Burgess had responsibility for 20 to 25 children at one time, with his role involving him preparing reports for the Children’s Reporter, liaising with other agencies, supporting the child and agreeing a care plan to meet the child’s needs.
Most children in care have experienced trauma or loss and his post involved supporting kids and their carers, doing activities with the youngsters and sometimes arranging contact with the child and other family members.
He also was a duty worker in the team and would be asked to respond if there was a crisis or a worker was on holiday.
In 2015, while playing pool at a community centre in Paisley with a boy he was assigned to, he drew explicit pictures on a whiteboard, leaving the child “freaked out”.
After learning what had happened, the boy’s parents asked for Burgess to be banned from seeing him, and told his school he was not allowed to visit him.
In 2017 he barged into one teenage girl’s bedroom while she was getting changed – after she told him she was undressing and not to enter the room.
She ran to her gran after the incident and told her she no longer wanted Burgess to be her case worker.
He also preyed on a another teenager when she was aged between 15 and 17, grooming her before sexually assaulting her.
The court heard he convinced her to store his personal mobile phone number in her phone as ‘Art and Music Therapy’ and changed his profile picture to Vincent Van Gogh.
He told her that she should do that so her classmates did not know she had a case worker when she attended college.
He bombarded her with WhatsApp messages, texting her throughout the day on a daily basis, saying he was checking in and was “liking the banter”.
He regularly sent her funny videos, joking with her and saying he was getting to know her.
After giving her presents of arts and crafts items, a candle, a book and i-Pod, he cuddled her after arriving at her home, where she was alone, then said “someone’s excited” while looking at his crotch.
She noticed he was aroused by the interaction, leaving her panicked and feeling ‘like jelly’, before he put his hand around her neck, pulled her towards him and kissed her.
He later sexually assaulted her in the back of his car, after pulling over on a secluded road and convincing her to get into the back of the vehicle.
On another occasion, he grabbed her hand and made her touch his privates.
On Tuesday, Burgess was sentenced at Paisley Sheriff Court after having earlier been convicted of six offences relating to his conduct.
He was jailed for four years and 10 months, given a three year and two month extended sentence, which will see him supervised upon his release from prison, and he was also placed on the sex offenders’ register.
A Renfrewshire Council spokesperson said: “We are deeply sorry for the harms caused by this individual and cooperated fully with the police investigation. The individual is no longer an employee of Renfrewshire Council.”