Paedophile jailed for 16 years for 'appalling' abuse of girl

Gary Boyes, 40, told the “frightened” youngster to keep his wicked crimes a secret or she would be in trouble with the police.

Boyes raped her on five occasions, got her to carry out lewd acts on him and made her watch adult pornographic videos on his phone and a laptop during a two-year grooming campaign.

When the terrified victim told him to stop, the heavily-built pervert simply ignored her and told her it was part of her “sexual education”, York Crown Court heard.

The under-age girl eventually went to the police but Boyes denied all allegations, claiming the girl was lying.

Boyes, formerly of Scarborough but lately of Blackpool, was charged with a string of horrific sexual offences but initially denied all charges at a preliminary court hearing. He changed his pleas to guilty less than a week before a trial was due to take place.

Boyes, of Charles Street, Blackpool, admitted three counts of raping a child between January 2013 and January 2015.

He also pleaded guilty to three counts of causing or inciting the girl to engage in sexual activity, three counts of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, and four counts of causing a child to watch a moving image of a person engaging in a sexual act.

However, the court heard that the offences were only specimen charges and that Boyes had raped the girl on five separate occasions.

Prosecutor Rupert Doswell said that as part of the grooming process, Boyes would talk to the girl about “booze and ladies” and offered to give her “sex lessons”.

“He would make her watch sex videos… and showed her them on his phone,” added Mr Doswell.

Boyes even made her wear headphones to listen to the “noises” in the sex videos.

Boyes then moved on to physical abuse.

“He told her to say that she loved him and made her kiss him on the lips,” added Mr Doswell.

He said that when the girl first gave evidence to police, she had to write it down because she found it “very hard to speak about (the abuse)”.

In a victim statement read out in court, the girl - who cannot be named for legal reasons - told how her life had been turned upside down by Boyes’ shocking abuse.

She said had been so mentally-scarred she had considered leaving the country so she could be “free from not having to look behind me or remembering what happened”.

She said the life-changing effects of the abuse could scupper her hopes for the future because she no longer felt like a normal girl.

Defence barrister Taryn Turner said that Boyes had already “reconciled himself” to a long spell behind bars and been seeking solace in the church while on custodial remand.

Judge Paul Batty QC branded the offences “appalling”, adding: “This is a course of conduct which involved the grooming, the debauching, the corrupting, of a little girl.”

He said Boyes had used the “sex lessons” as a “device to make her more compliant with your revolting practices”.

“The effect that your offending has had upon her has been profound,” added the judge. “She describes how, when she was with you, she was perpetually frightened and thereafter… she was always looking behind her, scared and frightened.”

Jailing Boyes for 16 years, Mr Batty said he would serve half of that sentence in jail before the Parole Board considered whether it was safe for him to be released.

As a registered sex offender, Boyes will have to notify police of his whereabouts for the rest of his life.

Mr Batty also made a lifetime sexual-harm prevention order, which prohibits Boyes from contacting the victim, staying at any household with a girl under 16, and having any inadvertent contact with under-age females.