Christopher Murray 63

Description

A predatory paedophile spent decades sexually abusing and raping young children, a court has heard. HGV driver Christopher Murray subjected three girls and a boy to a catalogue of horrific abuse at a number of different locations including in the cab of his lorry.

Cardiff Crown Court heard that some of the abuse was first reported to police in the 1990s but Murray was not prosecuted and went on to continue his sexual offending. A judge said she had no doubt the 63-year-old defendant should be considered a dangerous offender, and made him subject to a 24-year extended sentence.

Ruth Smith, prosecuting, told the court Murray subjected his victims to repeated sexual assaults and rapes, often accompanied by threats and physical violence. In a number of the incidents the defendant punched the young girls in the face when they tried to stop him raping them. He also told his young victims that if they reported what was happening nobody would believe them because they were just children.

The abuse was in fact reported to the authorities in 1997 and the defendant was arrested but due to "evidential difficulties" he was not prosecuted. The court heard Murray went back to his campaign of sexual assaults and rapes at a number of locations around Gwent and also in the cab of his lorry - at the time Murray drove a lorry delivering frozen food.

The prosecutor told the court one of the victims would later recall the feeling of being "crushed" under the defendant's 16-stone body weight and the smell of his old Spice aftershave as he raped her. The abuse of the children was often accompanied by acts and words designed to humiliate his young victims.

The court heard the offending lasted more than a decade and only stopped when Murray was sent to prison in 2001 for sexually abusing other children. After being released from his sentence - and undergoing courses designed to tackle his paedophilia - he resumed offending against children.

In a series of powerful statements read to the court, the victims of Murray's abuse laid bare the impact of the offending. All the victims described how the defendant had stolen their childhoods and innocence, and how their adolescence and adult lives had been blighted by feelings of shame and guilt. One victim described how she had turned to drink and drugs to try to block out what had happened to her - this led her into risky behaviours and she said her family "spent years worried they would find me dead in a ditch".

Another talked of the "deeply embedded wounds" left by the abuse and how he "grew up overnight" while another said as a child she "lost hope" the abuse would ever end, and in later life developed obsessive compulsive disorder and an unhealthy relationship with food. Murray's fourth victim described how she turned to self-harming and had been left suffering with anxiety, depression, nightmares and flashbacks.

Christopher Andrew Murray, now of Heol Llansantffraid, Sarn, Bridgend, had previously pleaded guilty to 32 counts of indecent assault, indecency with a child, assault by penetration, and rape when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has 10 previous convictions for 25 offences including two indecent assaults of a child in 1985 and three indecent assaults of a child in 2001 for which he was sentenced to four years in prison.

Matthew Roberts, for Murray, said there was little of merit that could be said for the defendant but said he had pleaded guilty to the offences before the court and not, as some offenders do in such historical sex cases, decided to "chance his arm" with a trial and put the complainants through the "horrendous prospect" of having to give evidence. He said it was clear from the pre-sentence report that the defendant "at last" had some insight into his offending, and he said though the words may sound "hollow" the defendant wished him to apologise to his victims.

Judge Vanessa Francis said Murray was a "relentless" and "predatory" abuser of children who continued to offend even after coming to the attention of police in 1990s and then serving a prison sentence and doing work designed to tackle his offending. She said looking at the offending before the court as well as Murray's previous convictions, she was satisfied a standard determinate sentence would not sufficiently protect the public and the defendant could properly be termed a dangerous offender within the meaning of the legislation and subject to an extended sentence.

With a one-third discount for his guilty pleas, Murray was given a 24-year extended sentence comprising 18 years in prison followed by a six-year extended licence period. He must serve two-thirds of the custodial element of the sentence before applying to be released but it will be for the parole board to determine whether he is safe to be released or not. He was also made the subject of a life-long sexual harm protection order designed to control his access to children, and will be on the sex offenders register indefinitely.