August 2022

Former builder jailed for sexually abusing two little girls

An 81-year-old former Melton builder has been jailed for more than six years for sexually abusing two little girls.

Frank Bone, of Queensway, Old Dalby, was sentenced for his crimes, which also included two indecent assaults and making indecent photographs of a child, at a hearing at Loughborough Magistrates Court.

One of his victims, who is now aged 33, read a moving victim impact statement in court in which she said: “The outcome of this trial can never take away what the defendant did to me as a defenceless child and the life-long impact his abhorrent actions continue to have on me every single day.”

We are not naming the woman, who was aged five when the abuse began in the Melton area, to protect her anonymity.

She also said in court that she has nightmares in her sleep virtually every night because of what happened and that she often wakes up ‘choking and screaming’.

Bone denied the charges at an earlier trial at Leicester Crown Court but was found guilty on all of them.

He arrived at the sentencing this week in a wheelchair – the hearing was switched to the Loughborough court because of the easier access.

Bone was convicted of four counts of sexual activity with a child aged under 13, between 2004, and 2012.

The court also sentenced him on two charges of indecent assault, committed between 1994 and 1998, and between 1994 and 2004.

He was also convicted of making indecent photographs of a child between 2013 and 2018.

The bench sentenced Bone to a total of six years and three months in prison and ordered that he be kept on the sexual offenders register indefinitely.