Former Wallasey Sea Cadet paedophile jailed again for sex crime

Liverpool Crown Court heard that David Taylor, who was a lieutenant in the cadet unit, had deliberately plied the innocent 13-year-old victim with alcohol before molesting him.

Taylor, now 67, has previously been jailed for sexually abusing other boys from the sea cadets, and the victim of today’s proceedings came forward after speaking to one of them.

Putting Taylor behind bars for 16 months for three offences of indecently assaulting the boy in in the mid 1980s, Judge Neil Flewitt, QC, said that the victim realised with hindsight that he had been groomed by the defendant.

The judge told white-haired Taylor, “This is the third time offences were committed during the same phase of your life. You had two opportunities to wipe the slate clean regarding offending with sea cadets but you did take those opportunities.

“A particularly significant and particularly serious feature of this case is the use of alcohol to facilitate the offences. There was grooming behaviour, a clear breach of trust and a significant disparity in age.”

Steven Swift, prosecuting, told the court that at the time Taylor had been a part-time volunteer with the sea cadet unit with responsibility for hiking, camping and orienteering.

The victim went on a camping trip to Wirral Country Park with the group and as his family could not afford a tent Taylor allowed him to share his tent. “After an evening hike he took him and other cadets to a public house and bought them alcohol.

“The boy drank two or three pints of cider and stumbled on the way back to the camp site.”

They got into separate sleeping bags in the tent and the boy later awoke to find Taylor “spooning” him from behind and felt his full weight against him.

Fearing he was going to be raped the boy managed to shift his weight and the incident came to an end.

He tried to wipe the incident from his mind but looking back recalls later being invited to Taylor’s home.

The third offence took place on another camping trip to the country park when Taylor said he would help him complete his Duke of Edinburgh assessment.

He again took him to a pub and bought him alcohol which affected him and caused him to fall on the way back, said Mr Swift.

Once back in the tent Taylor set about touching the boy who said “his hands were everywhere trying to touch me.”

Shortly afterwards he learnt that Taylor had been arrested on suspicion of sex offences but he was too embarrassed to admit that he too was a victim.

In recent times he divulged to another of Taylor’s victims what had happened and decided to go to the police. Taylor was jailed in 1987 for abusing that other boy as well as two or three others.

In an impact statement the latest victim to come forward told of the affect on his personal and work life.He has suffered “anger, emotional pain and anguish for over 30 years.”

He said he has been “left with scars he will carry for the rest of his life.”

The court heard that Taylor, a former merchant seaman, of Vauxhall Road, Liverpool, was jailed for 27 months in 2010 for possessing indecent images of children In September 2012 he received two-and-a-half years after admitting six offences involving for abusing another sea cadet.

He had also been jailed in 1990 for repeatedly abusing a boy, not a sea cadet, in swimming baths in Barrow-in-Furness.

Lionel Greig, defending, said Taylor is a retired man living alone and has been on bail for the offences. He accepted they crossed the custody threshold but he urged the judge to suspend the sentence.

In sentencing. Judge Flewitt said that a probation officer considered that Taylor “has demonstrated entrenched views and lacks motivation to change.”

He added that even if he had been thinking of suspending the prison sentence he was not convinced he would have complied with the conditions.

“I would be sending out the wrong message to the public in general and the victim in particular if I did not mark these offences with an immediate term of imprisonment,” he added.