Paedophile who sexually abused young girl at Wakefield swimming pool is jailed

Leeds Crown Court heard 58-year-old convicted sex offender Martin Paul carried out the abuse in cubicles at changing rooms at the former Lightwaves leisure centre in Wakefield and at Barnsley Metrodome.

The court was told the offences took place from when the girl was aged around five or six-years-old to when she was around nine or ten-years-old.

Prosecutor Mark McKone said Paul also took indecent photographs of the girl. Mr McKone said police found Paul’s diary in which he had written comments relating to his offences.

Mr McKone read extracts from the girl’s victim impact statement to the court, in which she wrote: “I have only recently come to terms with what has happened. I get really angry and really sad. I get flashbacks. It’s always at the back of my mind. It’s hard for me to be around men, even people I trust.”

Paul admitted sexual assault of a child under 13, two charges of assault by penetration of a child under 13 and inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity.

Paul has 21 previous convictions starting in 1976 when he was convicted of three sexual offences involving girls under 14. In January 2014 he admitted 18 offences of making indecent photographs of children.

Mitigating, Mark Brookes said Paul, of Gold Croft, Gold Street, Barnsley, suffers from anxiety and depression, adding: “He does present as someone with a mental disorder.”

Judge Mushtaq Khokhar jailed Paul for nine years and ordered that his name be on the sex offender register indefinitely.