June 2022

Paedophile caged after sexually abusing boy for five years

Paedophile Keith Hollinshead has been locked up for 10 years after sexually abusing a young boy.

The 65-year-old carried out the offences over a five year period

But his vile offending only came to light when the victim went to Staffordshire Police in 2018 after confiding in his wife. The OAP was convicted of six serious child-sex offences following a trial at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court.

Sentencing Hollinshead, of Water Street, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Recorder Anthony Warner said: “What started with stroking his hair, his arms and his legs moved to touching his genitals under his clothing. He described your hand ‘like a crab’ moving down.”

The victim realised the horrors of the offending when later attending sex education lessons at school. It has left him feeling suicidal.

Recorder Warner told Hollinshead: “I cannot say that there’s no risk, or future risk, of you committing another serious offence. He said nothing to anyone for many years. He finally spoke to his wife in 2018. The police were called.

“While he was giving his evidence in court the pain he had suffered, and still suffers, was palpable. Even now there’s rarely a day when he doesn’t think of what you did. He said he felt worthless and it became a downward spiral. He has attempted to end his life.

“It left him feeling dirty making him want to scrub his skin clean. His wife has started to enable him to feel that he should be loved.”