‘Aggrieved’ paedophile is finally jailed for attacking girls aged five and under

Balding grandfather David Bryant, 65, from Ulverston, Cumbria, felt “a sense of grievance” after being caught so long after the offences, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

He was sentenced for four terrifying attacks on his victims in Hampshire and Tyneside.

He admitted kidnap and sexual assault after cold-case detectives made a DNA link to catch him 30 years after he first struck.

Bryant’s offending was terrifying and became more serious as he continued to evade capture, with the mother of his final victim believing her daughter was dead as she had been missing for 17 hours.

In the first case in the early 1980s, he grabbed a girl aged five who was playing outside her Hampshire home from under the nose of her mother.

Moments later, a couple reported they had found the youngster and a man had run away.

Bryant had taken her to a derelict house and committed a sex act over the child, leaving DNA evidence on her which would prove useful decades later.

Judge Goss, the Recorder of Newcastle, told Bryant: “Your first victim’s life has been deeply affected by your crimes. She became clingy, introverted, still lacks confidence and has received counselling.”

The following year a three-year-old was snatched in Southampton. Bryant offered to show her some puppies, took her to woods and sexually abused her.

Speaking as an adult, she said: “When I hear an ice cream van playing its music, I am left with chills all over my body.”

Bryant worked in Saudi Arabia for a decade but by the mid 1990s he had moved to Cumbria.

He preyed on a five-year-old girl who was playing outside her home in Newcastle. The girl was found half-dressed 36 miles away in Darlington around three hours later. She had also been abused.

Later that year a four-year-old from Newcastle’s west end was abducted as she walked 30 yards to a friend’s house.

Bryant later admitted he took her to a caravan in Cumbria. He dumped her in Darlington the next day. The former soldier abused her, then washed her in the bath to get rid of DNA.

The victim had knocked on a woman’s door, saying: “I cannot find my daddy. I have lost my daddy.”

Hampshire detectives began a cold-case review of the sex attacks and through DNA advances, tracked down the predator, having eliminated three of his male relatives from their inquiries.