ONCE the Parole Board decides it is safe to free a Rugby man who kidnapped and sexually abused a young girl 17 years ago, he will then have to start serving another jail term.
Arnold Baxter was jailed for 12 months by a judge at Warwick Crown Court after pleading guilty to three charges of making indecent images of children.
The court heard the perverted 73-year-old, formerly of Bath Street, had even Photoshopped his own face onto those of the men pictured in the images having sex with infant girls.
Baxter is already serving a nine-year sentence imposed at Stafford Crown Court in February last year for the kidnap and indecent assault of a six-year-old girl in 2001.
Prosecutor Lynette McClement said he had ‘remained under the radar’ for that offence until he was arrested in 2016 for a drink-driving offence.
Routine fingerprint and DNA samples were taken – and provided a match with the saliva of the little girl’s attacker.
The girl had been out in the street in 2001, on her way to a friend’s home in Barton-under-Needwood, near Burton-on-Trent, when Baxter had pulled up. He put her in his car and drove to a quiet spot where he sexually abused her, and then dropped her off outside a house where there was a light on – which happened to be the home of someone who knew her family.
After he had been linked to that incident, Baxter was arrested again, and the police searched his home where they seized 11 devices, including his phone and computer.
They all contained more than 6.500 sickening indecent images of children.
The images had been made over a nine-year period prior to his arrest, and included pre-pubescent children and infants, many of whom were displaying ‘discernible distress and pain.’
Miss McClement said after Baxter’s arrest, the investigation into the kidnapping and sexual abuse of the little girl had taken precedence, so the images had not been found at the time he was sentenced for those matters.
As a result, Judge Mark Eades sentenced him on the basis he had not committed any offences since 2001 – and therefore did not find he posed a danger to children in the future.
If Baxter had been classed as a dangerous offender, he would have had to serve at least six years of the nine-year term before the Parole Board could consider his release on licence.
Instead he was sentenced as ‘an offender of particular concern,’ so the Parole Board can consider freeing him after four-and-a-half years – if they believed it was safe to do so.
But Judge Andrew Lockhart QC said he considered Baxter did pose a danger, and ordered that a transcript of his remarks be put on his file ‘for the consideration of the Parole Board.’
Richard Hull, defending, conceded there must be a consecutive term.
Jailing Baxter for 12 months consecutive to the nine-year sentence he is already serving, Judge Lockhart told him: “I do find you present a clear risk of serious harm to young children by the commission of further offences. I have no hesitation in finding you dangerous.”
Only once the Parole Board decides it is safe to free Baxter, or when he has served the full nine-year term if they do not come to that conclusion before then, will he begin serving the 12-month sentence for the images.
