One hair links paedophile to abuse of girl

Terry McVicar was already serving life for offences against young girls when the Operation Recall team at West Yorkshire Police began reviewing the 1990 case, in which the young girl was taken from a Bradford playground with the promise of sweets.

The original evidence was sent for re-examination and thanks to scientific advances a DNA analysis on a hair found in her leggings revealed McVicar's profile.

Yesterday, McVicar, now 48, was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences after admitting the kidnap and two charges of indecent assault on April 6, 1990.

The Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC told him over a video link to Frankland Prison in County Durham – where he is serving his sentence – that his appalling behaviour on that day had devastated the lives of the girl and her mother.

The court heard that, in 2000, McVicar was jailed for life for the kidnap of three other young girls in Leeds and Bradford, two charges of indecent assault and one of attempted abduction.

He was ordered to serve a minimum of six and a half years but has been kept in custody since, more than three years after he passed that tariff and was refused parole last year.

The judge said he accepted McVicar had done valuable work in prison since to address his sexual offending but had the 1990 offence been known about then he would have been given a longer tariff.

He ordered McVicar serve a minimum of a further year before he can again apply for parole, warning it would be a question for the Parole Board if he was ever released.

Jonathan Sharp, prosecuting, said McVicar had said he was attracted to little girls who were, in his words, "clean."

In March 1990, he was given an 80-hour community order for indecently assaulting a nine-year-old girl in Kirkgate Market, Leeds.

After that incident he changed his name and moved to Bradford where on April 6, while on a trip to buy cannabis, he saw the four-year-old playing on a swing and said he decided to "have a bit of fun" with her.

She mistook him for an uncle and was not alarmed when he offered to get her some sweets.

He took her hand and led her away, taking her back to his bedsit in Undercliffe more than two miles away.

Once there he touched her indecently and then took all her clothes but her knickers off and put her into bed.

After smoking cannabis he got in with her and further abused her before he dressed her.

He then left her outside a jewellers shop in the centre of Bradford where she was found crying and upset.

In the 2000 offences, a six-year-old girl was taken from a fairground and abused, another girl in Beeston was offered sweets, and a four-year-old girl in Bramley was also put on his bike but he did not get far because she began screaming.

After the case yesterday, Detective Superintendent Colin Prime said: "I hope that this case will act as a warning to other criminals and shows that West Yorkshire Police are determined to see offenders brought to justice no matter how many years have passed."

Operation Recall is still examining unsolved serious sexual cases from between 1974 and 1999.

"It is a huge process and were still only about half way through it," said Det Supt Prime.