Man jailed over child sex abuse

A man has been jailed for more than five years after a visit to a psychic prompted two women to tell police they had suffered sexual abuse as children.

Terrance Dunstan, 61, from Morley, near Leeds, was convicted of five charges of indecently assaulting three girls aged between nine and 11 from 1997 to 2001.

Leeds Crown Court heard how one of his victims, now aged 20, broke down when a psychic suggested she had been abused.

She told a friend, now 19, who said she too had been assaulted by Dunstan.

Both women reported the abuse to police last October.

A third woman, now aged 17, then came forward with similar allegations.

Play fighting

During the trial, the court heard how Dunstan, a father-of-eight, was given a community order in March 2005 after he admitted four charges of indecently assaulting three different girls aged under 16 between 1989 and 2004.

He claimed he only pleaded guilty in that case so he could receive a lenient sentence and said the three girls in this trial had conspired with his previous victims and made their complaints because they were angry he escaped jail.

Sentencing Dunstan, Judge Rodney Grant said: "You suggested that the victims in this trial were only making these allegations against you because the sentence you received on the previous offences was a lenient one in their view."

Judge Grant described the crimes as "serious offences of a sexual nature" which took place in Dunstan's home after he encouraged the children to visit.

He said: "Once they were there you, in effect, indulged in grooming them for sexual purposes by indulging in play fighting that not only groomed them in the way that I mentioned but also established your control over them."

Dunstan was jailed for five-and-a-half years and will remain on the sex offenders' register for life.