Febuary 2007

Paedophile leaves town after exposure

A PAEDOPHILE who served a five-year jail sentence in America for indecent assaults on a 14-year-old boy has been living on one a housing estate in Weston.

Neil Brailsford, aged 55, returned to Britain seven years ago and has been living unsupervised by police in a three-bed semi on a new housing estate.

He moved into a three-bed semi in the resort after finishing his sentence in 2000. Since then, the former national sailing coach has befriended his unsuspecting neighbours’ children – and taken some of them on boating holidays.

The Sunday Mirror tracked down Brailsford at his address during an investigation to uncover the 27,000 offenders who have come over from Europe and are living in Britain unsupervised due to a Home Office blunder.

Residents in the quiet street, which is full of young families and just yards away from a nursery, were horrified to learn that Brailsford had been living in their midst and had even befriended their children.

One of his neighbours, who did not wish to be named, said: “It’s disgusting. He’s surrounded by children here, with young families in houses on either side of him. He befriended a lot of the children and was planning on taking them on a trip.

He lived on his own and he always had children round his house.

“When his neighbours found out about his past he left in the middle of the night and he’s not been seen since.”It’s awful that we weren’t told about him. I can’t believe he’s been living there all this time.

“The Home Office refused to comment but a police spokesman said: “The matter was reported to us on January 12. We searched the property on January 17 as part of an ongoing investigation but no arrests were made.

Inquiries are ongoing.”Brailsford, a technical director with engineering company Carl Bro Group, was also a former national sailing coach and befriended neighbours’ children by teaching them how to sail and taking them away on boat trips.

But one mother, who lives near him, said the pervert sailor approached her and her two sons almost two years ago and encouraged them to go sailing on his yacht, based in Plymouth.

The young mum finally allowed her son to join Brailsford on a sailing trip in Gibraltar.

She said: “All the teenage boys round here go to his house.

“In the summer and on school holidays his house is packed. He even bought one boy a laptop and would phone him at night on his mobile phone.

“Neil encourages the boys not to get summer jobs because it gets in the way of sailing practice.

“He was due to take a load of boys down to the Boat Show in London – and goes to all the regattas every year.”

Brailsford fled his home a week ago after his neighbours became aware of his background.

Brailsford, a technical director with an engineering company, has shut down a website promoting his sailing club which featured pictures of him with young boys.