A CHANCE sighting led to a paedophile being jailed for 14 years after he sexually abused two young girls, including raping one, in the 1980s.
David Drummond had denied raping one of his victims when she was about nine, four charges of indecently assaulting her and four of indecently assaulting another young girl, who was around the same age.
But a jury at Warwick Crown Court found 55 year-old Drummond of Dene Close, Kineton, where he helped with the parish church food bank, guilty of all nine charges.
He was jailed for 12 years for the rape, with two years concurrent for his other offences against that girl, and two years consecutive for the offences against the other girl.
Drummond, who was in his early 20s and living in Wellesbourne at the time of the offences, was also ordered to register as a sex offender for life.
Prosecutor Matthew Brook said the offences came to light after one of his victims was driving through Stratford with her husband and spotted Drummond hitch-hiking.
Memories of what he had done to her played on her mind, and a few days later she ‘blurted out’ to her husband she had been abused as a child.
After thinking about what to do, she then went to the police to make a formal complaint.
She told officers Drummond had visited her parents’ home, and on around five occasions when he was alone with her he sat next to her on the sofa and touched her intimately.
When the other victim heard a complaint had been made against Drummond, she also came forward, having told her husband some years earlier.
That woman revealed Drummond had raped her and also abused her on a number of other occasions.
“The defendant would tell her he would hurt her if she told anyone – and that threat worked, because it kept her silent for decades,” added Mr Brook.
Drummond claimed none of the incidents with either girl had ever taken place, and said he could not think of any reason why they had made allegations against him.
After the jury had returned its verdicts, Drummond’s barrister Julian Harris said he had lived ‘an unblemished life’ since then, and had recently been working in the food bank in Kineton.
But Judge Richard Griffith-Jones said that was of limited mitigation, and observed: “He could have admitted it and been given credit for his plea, but these ladies had to live it again in front of a jury.”
The judge told Drummond: “What you did in relation to both girls was humiliating and damaging and frightening.
“In 2015 the 1980s must seem a long time ago, and I can quite understand how someone may say ‘I’ve led a blameless life since,’ and that this in some way ought to be taken into account.
“The reality is that that passage of time has passed because those girls were frightened of what you had to say, and are still frightened, even today, of the consequences, afraid of how people who know them would react if it came to light.”
