Peter Gibbs 60

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A FORMER school bus driver in Witney has been jailed after raping a 14-year-old girl and encouraging a 13-year-old girl to send him naked photographs.

Peter Gibbs, 60, was sentenced at Oxford Crown Court of three counts of historic child sex abuse which happened in the early 2000s – two counts of indecent assault and one count of rape – after being found guilty at trial.

Over two decades later, Gibbs, pleaded guilty to one count each of sexual communication with a child and making indecent images of a child after six naked photographs were found of the teen on his device in 2022.

Sentencing Gibbs, of Briary Lane, Carterton, to eight years and seven months imprisonment, Judge Michael Gledhill said: “You ought to be thoroughly disgusted with yourself.”

During the sentencing, it was heard that the historic counts were first reported to police in August 2001 after the victim made a report, telling her GP she had been raped.

It was heard the assaults had happened in his car as well as on a bus where he worked as a driver.

However, the Crown Prosecution Service dismissed the case.

Gibbs was not charged at the time but was arrested again in February 2021 when a school reported that Gibbs, who was the authority’s bus driver at the time, had been messaging a 15-year-old student.

In May 2022, Gibbs pleaded guilty to the counts relating to that incident and the victim in the latest trial, who is now an adult, was contacted again by police and the case was reopened.

A victim impact statement written by the woman and teen were read out in court.

The first wrote: “Peter Gibbs ruined my life. After it happened, I couldn’t go back to school. I was extremely embarrassed. I felt my parents were disappointed in me.

“What he did to me affects me on a day-to-day basis.”

The teen wrote: “He was a person employed to keep children safe yet he made as a child feel unsafe.

“I feel like I can’t enjoy myself like my friends do because of what he has done to me.”

Defending Gibbs, his barrister explained that the defendant has not been ‘eating, drinking or taking medication’ in custody and has been placed on ‘a particular watch’.

He said: “He is very, very sorry for what he’s done and he’s remorseful for his actions.

"The man has fully, completely and totally come to his senses and has expressed his great sorrow and shame to his partner.”