March 2020

Woman’s powerful words to paedophile who stole her childhood

A paedophile’s victim said they had “visited hell and purgatory for no fault of my own” as the man responsible was put behind bars.

David Almond, 76, of Greasby, Wirral, was arrested in 2017 and subsequently charged with eight counts of indecent assault and four counts of indecency with a child in the 1980s and 1990s.

Following a trial at Liverpool Crown Court, Almond, of Summertrees Avenue, was sentenced to 13 years in prison and an additional year on licence for sexual assaults of three girls and one boy.

He was also issued a lifetime Sex Offenders Order.

All four victims were under the age of 14 at the time of the abuse.

A personal statement presented to the court from a female victim read: “I feel that my abuser stole and forever changed my childhood spirit.

“I have hit rock bottom so many times, I have visited hell and purgatory for no fault of my own.

“He tainted my innocence in a predatory calculating manner. He groomed a child… at a time when I trusted all adults. He groomed me, buying me gifts for his sexual perversions.

“I am using my voice to say you damaged me for decades and today I am still damaged.

“Due to the abuse I suffered at his hands, my teenage years left me with chronic depression, anxiety, self-loathing and ultimately PTSD.

“I think about what you did to me and realise a bit of me will always be missing. No medication, extra therapy, starving myself or unhelpful, destructive coping methods has kept you out of my mind.

“Every day of my life you have visited my thoughts, dreams and hope.”