Paedophile teacher Gerard Raffell paid off parents of 4-year-old

From The Times

Paedophile teacher Gerard Raffell paid off parents of 4-year-old

March 16, 2010

The parents of a four-year-old abuse victim accepted money, which they used for a deposit on a new house, from their son’s attacker rather than reporting him to police.

Children’s campaigners last night described the case of Gerard Raffell — who paid £18,000 to secure the silence of his victim’s family — as shocking.


Judge Ian Alexander, QC, called the parents' behaviour reprehensible

The payment left Raffell, 42, a teacher, free for four years before he was arrested last year when the boy, still traumatised by his ordeal, finally spoke about the attacks.

It is not known if Raffell committed more sex assaults during that period but police discovered 50 child abuse images on his computer when he was arrested in Birmingham last October.

Detectives looked into bringing blackmail charges against the boy’s parents after Raffell said that the family had demanded the money from him.

However, the Crown Prosecution Service decided against bringing charges because there was no evidence of any unwarranted demand made with menaces. The parents claimed that Raffell volunteered the payment.

Details of the deal between the parents and the paedophile emerged at Northampton Crown Court after Raffell pleaded guilty to four abuse charges.

Judge Ian Alexander, QC, described the case as “troublesome” and said that the parents’ behaviour was “reprehensible”. He added: “If people across the country were doing their own bargaining over crimes, what kind of society would we live in? It would be like the mafia.” However, he spared Raffell a prison sentence and imposed a community punishment.

The boy had been repeatedly abused by Raffell, who was a friend of the family when he lived in Daventry, Northamptonshire, in 2004 and 2005. The court heard that when the abuse came to light Raffell agreed to give up his job as a maths teacher, sell his house, move away and pay the family £18,000.

At Raffell’s first appearance in court earlier this month the judge said that he was “staggered” to learn of the deal struck between Raffell and his victim’s family. The judge said that Raffell had “effectively been fined £18,000 outside of the judicial system”.

Initial charges of attempted rape were dropped and Raffell admitted the lesser offence of causing the boy to engage in sexual activity. Raffell also asked for seven counts of possessing indecent images of children to be taken into account.

Last week the judge ordered him to participate in a three-year sex offenders treatment programme, placed him on the sex offenders register for ten years, banned him from working with children and made him the subject of a sexual offences prevention order.

The judge said that Raffell could not receive the treatment he required during a short prison sentence.

Claude Knights, the director of the charity Kidscape, said that the case required further investigation by the authorities.

“Did this man carry on teaching? Was this an isolated incident? How could they have put a price on their child’s suffering and left that child in this state, with all of this unresolved in his mind?” she said.

Northamptonshire County Council declined to say if social workers were involved in the case.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article7063118.ece

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/03/16/judge-fury-at-parents-over-paedophile-teacher-gerard-raffell-payoff-115875-22114186/