6 days Ago By [email protected] (Mark Naylor)
A serial sexual predator who had already been locked up after previous offences against girls has been jailed again after targeting two other young victims. Ian Patton was an "entrenched sex offender" who was "unable to quell the sexual urges that have overcome him" and he "passed himself off as harmless" before targeting the girls, Hull Crown Court heard. Ian Patton, 36, of Bacheler Street, off Anlaby Road, west Hull, denied five offences of assaulting a child under 13, involving two girls, and another offence of causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity but he was convicted by a jury after a trial.
David Godfrey, prosecuting, said that Patton was already a convicted sex offender at the time of the latest offences against two girls. His history of sexual offending began when he was given a referral order at Grimsby Youth Court in August 2005 for sexual assault when he was aged 16. During that incident, he dragged a girl into bushes and forcibly tried to kiss her in a public park.
She tried unsuccessfully to push him away. He tried to undo her trousers but she was able to shove him away. In June 2006, he was locked up at Grimsby Crown Court for two-and-a-half years for sexual assault of a girl under 13.
He was put on extended licence after that offence after being branded a dangerous offender. He was 17 at the time of the incident. The latest offences happened against that background, the court heard.
"He has been unable to quell the sexual urges that have overcome him," said Mr Godfrey. "His previous convictions demonstrate that he is sexually impulsive. He says that he simply misread the signs, such that it was an innocent misunderstanding.
He takes absolutely zero responsibility." Patton had pleaded guilty to the previous offences. He went on to commit "startling" new offences against two girls by sexually touching them.
"It was very similar to what he has done to other young girls," said Mr Godfrey. He told the jury during the trial: "They are plainly and obviously telling the truth and they are speaking of a painful experience of what they endured at his hands." The girls had "not made up wicked lies" against Patton.
One girl "could not keep the truth secret any longer" and she "could not bottle it up any longer". The other girl was "empowered" by the bravery" of the first girl in coming forward. "There is no suggestion that they knew anything of his past," said Mr Godfrey.
"He saw them as an opportunity to further his sexual urges." The first girl was "utterly broken" by Patton's behaviour and she was "broken by what he had done to her". She was vulnerable and sensitive and he was an "entrenched sex offender" who played off that.
"He passed himself off as harmless," said Mr Godfrey. Patton touched the girl intimately and she was forced to touch him. The second girl was an "easy" target and it was difficult and embarrassing for her to come forward.
"It was a huge thing to speak up," said Mr Godfrey. "The defendant is a sex offender. He has offended against similar children before.
" During the trial, Patton denied during his defence evidence that he had committed the offences. His barrister, Claire Holmes, said that Patton had previously been punished for earlier offences that he had admitted. He had been released from custody in 2011 after his earlier sentence, she said.
But she claimed that the jury did not have enough evidence of the latest offences for it to be able to convict Patton of them. "There are a number of problems with the evidence as a whole," claimed Miss Holmes. "The defence say that there is evidence missing that you would have wanted to be there if you were to be sure.
" The evidence was "fundamentally" flawed" against him, claimed Miss Holmes. Patton, who was on bail, was jailed for eight years after again being labelled a "dangerous" offender because of his previous convictions for sexual offences. He will be on extended licence of five years after his release from prison.
He was given an indefinite sexual harm prevention order and he will have to register as a sex offender indefinitely..
