A judge has asked for more time to carefully consider the sentence he will pass on a former Lake District football coach whom he described as a prolific predatory paedophile.
Anthony John Pickering, a 62-year-old army veteran, is awaiting punishment for the sexual abuse of one young player aged under 12 around the turn of the 1980s.
He is currently serving a life prison sentence for a catalogue of sexual offending against children in the Lake District, including other junior boys from the same club.
In 2020, he was ordered to serve a minimum of seven years behind bars. A prosecutor described child sex crimes with which Pickering had been convicted as indiscriminate with a judge who handed down punishment telling him: “You are a dangerous man.”
Two years earlier, Pickering had been given a seven-year prison stretch for sex crimes committed against young Lake District footballers during the 1970s.
That sentence was later hiked to nine years at the Court of Appeal where the Solicitor General concluded Pickering had robbed multiple victims of their childhood.
Media coverage of the 2020 court proceedings led to another man coming forward and telling police that he was molested by Pickering in a changing room at the Lakes football club while aged under 12.
Pickering, previously of Claife Avenue, Windermere, went on trial at Carlisle Crown Court earlier this year. He denied two charges of indecent assault and one attempted serious sexual assault. He was convicted of all three offences, unanimously, by a jury.
In an interview with police, the man recounted how he was abused by Pickering on numerous occasions around the turn of the 1980s. Asked how the abuse made him feel, the man replied: “Dirty.”
In an impact statement he had said: “I feel so much anger and resentment to Anthony Pickering. This man took advantage of me and stole my innocence. I will never get that back.”
Defence lawyer Vincent Ward told the court as he mitigated during a hearing today: “Mr Pickering continues to deny the offending.”
Judge Nicholas Barker observed Pickering had displayed wholesale predatory behaviour.
Judge Barker was due to pass sentence but instead adjourned the hearing, saying that he needed more time to carefully reflect on certain aspects of the case.
These included the links between Pickering’s latest conviction, and offending for which he was sentenced in both 2018 and 2020.
Sentencing is now due to take place on June 28 and Pickering remains in custody. Judge Barker had observed: “There is no doubt that Anthony Pickering is, by definition of his previous offences, a prolific, predatory paedophile.”
- In 2012 Pickering was handed a six-year jail term for sexually assaulting a young girl in West Yorkshire. Prior to that he was convicted at a court martial in Germany of indecently assaulting two boys during the 1990s while serving with the army, and handed a 42-month sentence.
