A FORMER shopworker wept in the dock as three women he sexually abused as children bravely confronted him in court.
Christopher White would give cigarettes, alcohol and confectionery to two children in return for sex acts performed on him on the shop floor of Layer Village Store in Layer de la Haye.
The 37-year-old, of Mill Lane, Birch, also raped another child when he invited her over to a property he was housesitting.
The offences took place between 2007 and 2009, when White was aged in his early twenties.
White denied three offences of sexual activity with a child, two offences of sexual assault of a child and two offences of rape of a child but was convicted during a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.
He was confronted by his victims in court before being sentenced to 14 years in prison.
One told him: “You made us go back to court and relieve the trauma because you thought you would get away with it.”
Another added: “I told myself for ten years that I was disgusting for what I had done but it was never what I had done, it was what you had done.
“It is something which is stuck with me and will never go away.”
White wept in the dock as a statement from his third victim said: “You have robbed three vulnerable girls of their youths which we will never get back.”
A police interview read during White’s trial detailed how he had attempted to hide his predatory behaviour by telling officers the three complainants were “troublemakers”.
His case was blown apart when he answered “yes” when asked by prosecutor Emma Nash: “Is it right that you thought: ‘What I’m going to do is go into that police interview and lie about it’?"
Dingle Clark, mitigating, told the court today (Thursday) his client “despised himself for some of his conduct”, adding he was “immature”.
But Judge Mary Loram KC said: “The effect on their lives has and will remain heartbreaking.
“It is tempting to call you pathetic but that would be wrong. You are manipulative, wholly self-centred and oblivious to how others might feel.”
White must serve two thirds of his prison sentence and will remain on the Sex Offenders Register for life.
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