A man has been handed a lengthy jail sentence for sickening sexual abuse of three children. Landscape gardener Anthony Green, 59, molested his three victims and then gave them money to stop them telling anyone.
All three of his victims came forward to police years later to report sickening incidents which took place when each of them was under the age of 13. After each attack, he offered the children small amounts of money to keep quiet.
Now Green, from Whitefield, has been handed a long jail sentence for attacking the children ‘to satisfy [his] own sexual desires’. His crimes only came to light years later, with one victim who is now an adult later telling detectives the attack was ‘disgusting and horrible’.
At his sentencing hearing on Friday (January 10) at Manchester Crown Court, Judge John Potter noted that after all three attacks the defendant paid his victims money ‘as an incentive that each of them should not speak to others about what [he] had done to them’.
The court heard Green indecently assaulted one victim, offering her ‘a few coins’ to get undressed and then telling her to get into a bed with him before he sexually touched her. The attack was reported decades later. The woman told police she had felt ‘scared’ and that the attack was ‘disgusting and horrible’.
In a victim impact statement referred to in court, the woman said the incident had had a ‘profound psychological effect’ on her both as a child and as an adult.
His second victim reported Green sexually assaulted her. He pinned her to the floor by her hands and legs while play fighting before carrying out an horrific sex attack, the court was told.
Green then ‘moved back and forth’. When he stopped, the girl got dressed and Green gave her money which she spent in the shops that afternoon, the court was told.
His third victim was sexually assaulted her on two occasions. Green touched her sexually, the court was told. When the girl told him he was hurting her, Green stopped and gave her £7 he grabbed from a money box in the room.
He told her to tell her parents the money was for helping him do gardening work. Prosecutor Sacha Waxman said the defendant had two previous convictions dating more than 40 years ago, but they weren’t for sex crimes.
Daniel Calder, defending, told the court his client had worked as a self-employed landscape gardener ‘for many years’.
Judge Potter, describing Green’s offending, said “You did so for the purpose of your own sexual gratification because, despite your protestations to the contrary, these events illustrate you are sexually attracted to female children under the age of 13. These three events which were each in my view deliberate acts by you shows your willingness to abuse these children so you could satisfy your own sexual desires.”
Green puffed out his cheeks in shock when Judge Potter jailed him for 10 years, going on to praise his victims for ‘bravely giving evidence’.
The defendant was also told that he must sign the Sex Offenders Register for life.
Green, of Oak Lane in Whitefield, had pleaded not guilty to one count of indecent assault and three of sexual assault but was convicted by a jury following a trial. He was acquitted of 12 other sex charges including rape of a child.