March 2002

Sex beast swimming coach gets 13 years

A swimming instructor has been jailed for 13 years for sexually assaulting three schoolboys.

Former swimming coach and landscape gardener Shaun Bowron, 36, was also placed under a restraining order, meaning he cannot work with children or go to any public baths.

Once he is released from jail he must spend another ten years on licence.

Teesside Crown Court heard how Bowron’s latest offending came just eight years after he avoided jail despite appearing in front of a judge for similar sex offences.

Bowron already had four convictions in 1994 for sex abuse against his name, two for indecent assault and two for indecency with a child, for molesting an 11- year-old boy after meeting him in a North Yorkshire swimming baths.

In July 1994, a York Crown Court judge placed him on a two-year probation order, told him to do 100 hours unpaid work in the community and to get help for his problem.

Yesterday, Bowron was locked up by Judge Peter Bowers who heard evidence of how the swimming coach groomed three young boys from Hartlepool, Teesside, for abuse.

The judge branded Bowron a “predatory paedophile” in spite of his mild-mannered nature.

Bowron, from Peterlee, County Durham, was convicted of his latest crimes in a trial at Teesside Crown Court last December. He had denied three offences of rape, six of indecent assault and one of indecency with a child.

One of his victims told the jury Bowron, of Baliol Close, tried to hypnotise him by getting him to look at a dot on a wall.

Peter Makepeace, for Bowron, said his client still denied all allegations against him despite the jury’s verdicts.

He admitted the court had the power to impose a life sentence, but said there were sufficient restrictions which could be imposed on Bowron to avoid it.