Abuser befriended families and then molested children

Although subject to a Sexual Offences Prevention Order banning him from associating with children under 16 Kevin Lindley offered to look after his latest victims to help their mothers and took advantage on the two occasions.

Leeds Crown Court heard in the past he had been jailed for sexual assaults on children as young as four when he got them alone.

Imposing an indeterminate sentence for public protection on Lindley yesterday Judge Kerry Macgill said he agreed with a probation officer’s assessment that he was dangerous and posed a high risk of further serious harm to children.

Ordering him to serve a minimum of three-and-a-half years in prison, less time spent on remand, he warned Lindley he would now only be released when the Parole Board considered him safe to do so.

He said Lindley had an appalling record and previous jail sentences and sex offender treatment programmes had not worked on him.

Lindley, 46, admitted two charges of sexual assault and three of breaching the Sexual Offences Prevention Order.

Kirstie Watson, prosecuting, told the court Lindley’s offending began in 1981. In 1986 he was jailed for 12 months after indecently assaulting a four-year-old boy in a public toilet.

In 1988 he was jailed for six years at Sheffield Crown Court for three indecent assaults on children aged four, five and seven.

Miss Watson said in 1999 Lindley was jailed for eight years at Sheffield Crown Court for taking a four-year old girl into toilets and molesting her after she wandered away from her mother.

She said the latest offences in Leeds came to light after Lindley himself complained to police he was being blackmailed by the father of a young girl.

The judge said it was horrifying to hear of that man’s actions, demanding money to keep quiet after his daughter returned home with her tracksuit bottoms the wrong way round and later revealed Lindley had touched her. The police then uncovered the truth.

Olivia Checa-Dover, for Lindley, had urged a determinate sentence submitting his offending had not escalated.