A SEX offender who repeatedly targeted a child more than 30 years ago has been jailed.

Derek Lloyd Whellams, 51, left his victim “wanting to die” as he grew up and began to understand the disturbing crimes committed against him in Colchester.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard Whellams, of Linden Close, Colchester, was about 15-years-old at the time he committed the offences.

Mitigating counsel told how the defendant, an engineer, had experienced physical and mental abuse as a child and his acts were those of a disturbed teenager from a “dysfunctional family”.

Sentencing him to six years imprisonment, Judge Timothy Walker said Whellams continued to escalate his crimes when he realised he could get away with them.

An impact statement read to the court yesterday told how the victim had grown up with the “shame and fear” of having to remain in complicit silence about his body being used against him.

“Even as an adult I fear changing rooms in fear of sexual assault,” the victim said. “I thought I faced a life totally alone with all my issues and no-one to help me.

“I thought I would be too damaged; I had a grotesque, abused body and I wanted to die to get it over with.”

Whellams admitted two counts of indecent assault and was also convicted of two counts of a serious sexual offence and indecency with a child after a trial.

Judge Walker lambasted him for pushing the boundaries of his offending further and further “to see how far he could get away with things”.

Addressing Whellams, he said: “Your victim describes his entire life being profoundly affected by what you did to him during his childhood.

“It’s clear your sexual abuse of him has caused him very severe psychological harm. He is completely blameless for your abuse you forced upon him.

“When you were met with little or no resistance, you escalated things. You continued to persist with your acts as they felt more normalised.”