A MAN who sexually abused four girls during offending which spanned 40 years has finally been brought to justice.
Three of Leslie Austin’s victims had to give evidence twice during trials at Warwick Crown Court after one jury failed to reach verdicts on charges involving them.
That jury had convicted him of a charge relating to one girl – and at a retrial, a second jury found him guilty of all five of the remaining charges relating to the other three victims.
Austin, 70, of Netherstead Cottages, Morton Bagot, near Studley, was jailed for five years and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.
He had been convicted of five charges of indecent assault and one of sexual assault.
During the first of his two trials prosecutor Michael Williams told the jury: “The offences span 40 years, and some of the victims, who all knew the defendant in various ways, were as young as 10 or 11.”
The earlier offences came to light following a complaint by the last of Austin’s victims, who he had sexually assaulted after offering to give her a driving lesson.
His first victim, now in her 50s, would sometimes go to his home with her family when she was a schoolgirl in the 1970s.
He took the opportunity when he was alone with her to touch her intimately over her clothing.
She finally came forward, having confided in her husband that Austin had ‘messed about’ with her, after the police began to investigate his activities.
Another victim was ten or 11 when, in the 1980s, she had visited Austin’s home because she knew his daughter.
She said she was sitting alone when Austin came into the room, sat behind her and touched her over her clothing.
The third victim was in her mid-teens when she was at the house in the early 1990s and was indecently touched by Austin.
The police began to investigate Austin’s activities in 2016 after he had offered to give an older teenager a driving lesson and took her to an isolated road where he showed her how to stop and start the car.
“As soon as she was driving, he began rubbing his hand up and down her thigh, and also touched her breasts,” said Mr Williams.
She told her grandmother what had happened and the police were subsequently contacted.
During the two trials Austin denied sexually assaulting any of the girls, claiming they were all lying.
Following the jury’s verdicts in the second trial, Judge Anthony Potter commented: “It does seem to me that this man is a menace to females, and has been for some time.”
Lee Egan, defending, said Austin, who was of previous good character apart from a drink-driving offence, suffers from Crohn’s disease, and had a stroke in 2014 and then a pseudoseizure while waiting for the verdict in the first trial.
He added that being jailed would lead to Austin losing the rented home he had lived in since 1976.
