A MAN has been told he faces “years” in prison after he was convicted of sexually abusing a young girl.
John Ashley Dobson, 64, went on trial at Carlisle Crown Court earlier this week having denied two indecent assault charges alleging criminal conduct dating back more than 25 years.
A jury had watched an interview the female – now an adult – gave to police last year after reporting that Dobson had sexually abused her twice while she was of primary school age.
Of one incident, she told an officer: “I just remember crying. I wanted him to stop but he didn’t stop. He didn’t stop at all. He just kept telling me to be quiet.”
Of the other, she stated: “He said I wasn’t allowed to say anything because I would get into trouble.”
The court heard Dobson had “ridiculed” the girl at the time after she reported what he had done. “Having tried to get some help,” prosecutor Neville Biddle told jurors, “(she) was not believed and she had to bury what had happened to her in the depths of her mind.”
This afternoon (FRI), the jury found Dobson, of Croft Close, Brough, unanimously guilty of the two indecent assaults. Jurors had been told Dobson was also convicted, in January this year, of two modern day sexual offences, committed against two different children.
He is due to be sentenced for all four crimes on July 5, and in the meantime was remanded in custody. “You have been convicted of serious historical sexual offences, as well as contemporary offences,” Judge James Adkin told Dobson. “You should expect a very long custodial sentence.”
Judge Adkin had earlier said to jurors of the imminent punishment: “It is going to be measured in years.”
