Kevin Doig

A tutor who had spent more than a decade as The Magic Circle’s child protection officer that sexually assaulted a nine-year-old girl he was helping prepare for her 11-plus examination has been jailed for just two years and two months.

However, he will likely be released after he has spent just 265 days in prison

Kevin Michael John Doig from Bexley was sent straight to prison after a judge rejected his defence’s request for a suspended sentence.

Woolwich Crown Court heard that the child disclosed the abuse to her mother while travelling home from school.

Prosecutor Michael Hillman said Doig had lifted the girl onto his knee, rubbed her inner thigh and put his hand inside her underwear, sexually touching her.

Her disclosure led to his arrest in March 2025. Police seized ten electronic devices and uncovered 1,076 indecent images of children, including 14 in Category A, the most serious classification, alongside 46 Category B and 1,016 Category C images.

Doig answered no comment during police interviews.

He admitted the sexual assault and five further offences relating to indecent images. The prosecution did not pursue an additional sexual abuse charge involving the same child, telling the court it was unlikely to add to the sentence. That charge did not result in a conviction.

Defending, Kate Chidgey said that, on 15 March 2025, Doig had told a reverend he was a paedophile, was attracted to young boys and had prohibited images on his devices.

Ms Chidgey referred to support from his brother and threats and abuse Doig had experienced. She urged the court to impose a suspended prison sentence with probation supervision.

Judge Philip Shorrock rejected that request.

Despite allowing a 30 per cent reduction for his early guilty pleas, the judge ruled that immediate imprisonment was necessary. He said suspending the sentence would fail to send the appropriate message to potential offenders.

Doig was sentenced to 26 months in prison and made subject to a ten-year sexual harm prevention order. The court also imposed sex offender notification requirements, recorded in the supplied hearing notes as lasting ten years.

He was ordered to pay £500 in prosecution costs and a further £220 payment.

The hearing ended with the judge’s instruction: “Take him below.”

Doig bowed his head as he was led from the dock to the cells

Doig spent 32 years teaching in south-east London before retiring. He also worked as a magician, appeared in pantomimes and chaired the Young Magicians Club, The Magic Circle’s youth initiative, from 2011 to 2022.

The judge’s refusal to suspend the sentence demonstrated the court’s view that the seriousness of the offending required immediate imprisonment and that the sentence should also serve as a deterrent to others

Source: UK Database on Facebook