Sex Offender Befriended Parents Of The Victims And Bribed Children With Gifts, Court Told

A man who has been accused of committing dozens of child sex abuse charges has admitted that he committed the crime by befriending the parents of the victims and offering to babysit the children, a court was told.

London-based Paul Farrell, 55, has admitted to 69 sexual offences against eight victims over a period of 35 years. He was charged with multiple counts of attempted rape, sexual assault of a child under 13 and making indecent photographs of children.

Farrell worked as a hospital porter and committed these offences between 1985 and 2020. However, investigators determined that he did not target any of the patients at his hospital.

The prosecutors told the court that the number of offences Farrell had committed is estimated to be “not less than 560.” However, they believe that the actual number is “likely to be in the thousands.”

Farrell had maintained a diary to record the threats and bribes he used to coerce each of his victims, a court was told Friday, reported Sky News.

In one of the cases, he was accused of abusing three boys who were siblings. Prosecutor Paul Douglass told the court that Farrell had “effectively manipulated and groomed the whole family” in order to “get at” the three siblings. The mother of the three boys who were sexually abused said that Farrell had “used” them as parents.

“He kept a diary in which he noted down, day by day, his strategy to keep them under his control,” Douglass said citing a phone record from Farrell, BBC reported.

Farrell’s notes included reminders of gifts he needs to buy for the family members of the victims or to offer himself as a babysitter. The court also heard that Farrell had employed malicious threats against one of the three siblings who was aged 12 to keep him under his control.

The victim said that he had cried himself to sleep after his attempts to resist the rape failed. The boy also later developed suicidal thoughts, according to a victim impact statement read in court.

Farrell is expected to be sentenced Monday.