A PERVERT who indecently assaulted a teenage girl after going to a Rugby house where she was babysitting went on to sexually abuse a young woman several years later.
And justice has finally caught up with abuser John Hall after a jury at Warwick Crown Court found him guilty of charges of indecent assault and sexual assault.
Hall, 55, who previously lived in Rugby, but now of St Giles Avenue, Sleaford, Lincs, was jailed for four-and-a-half years and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.
Prosecutor Matthew Barnes said that in the early 2000s the 13-year-old daughter of a family Hall knew was babysitting two younger children at a home in Rugby.
Hall, who also lived in Rugby at the time, turned up unexpectedly and sat on the sofa next to her as he talked to her.
Hall told her the necklace she was wearing was caught in the zip of her top as a ruse to touch her, and then moved his hand under her top and inside her bra.
“Her reaction was to be completely shocked. She froze and felt unable to react, and he went on to rub his body against hers, and then got up and left.”
The girl immediately phoned a friend to tell her what had happened, and some weeks later she told her mother.
Her parents confronted Hall, who protested his innocence, claiming he had never touched her, and the girl did not want to go to the police at the time.
It was only last year, in her 20s, that she reported what had happened after becoming aware of a further complaint of sexual assault against Hall.
Mr Barnes said that had taken place in the summer of 2017, when a woman in her mid-20s was lodging at a property in Sleaford where Hall had previously lived and to which he still had some connection.
He spent the night at the property and, after the woman had fallen asleep on a bed-settee in the living room, she woke to find Hall lying next to her, and he began touching her to her side over her clothing before moving his hand to touch her upper leg and bottom.
“It was unpleasant, and there was no consent. She sat up, and he left the address, and she phoned her boyfriend and told him what had happened,” said Mr Barnes.
Hall claimed neither incident took place.
He said there had been an occasion when he had inspected a gold necklace the girl was wearing, with her permission, and that she had then accused him of touching her, which he asserted he had not done.
And in relation to the more recent incident, he accepted he did lie on the sofa bed, but claimed he did not touch the young woman sexually.
After the jury returned its guilty verdicts, Mr Barnes said Hall had ‘a raft of offences’ of violence and dishonesty on his record.
And he pointed out that both victims have spoken of the significant impact the offences have had on them.
Jailing Hall, Judge Anthony Potter told him: “I am quite satisfied your actions were a cynical taking advantage of two individuals. There is no evidence of any remorse.
“The only mitigating factor is that you have difficulties with your health, and as a result this sentence will be harder to serve than some others you have served.”
