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Pervert Choirmaster Jailed for Abusing Five Young Girls during the 60s and 70s in Stockton and Lancaster

Northern Echo
April 14, 2017

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/15224245.Perverted_choirmaster_jailed_for_abusing_five_young_girls/

JAILED: John Blacktop committed some of his sex offences while living in Stockton

A PERVERTED choirmaster has been jailed for a string of sex offences on young girls during the 60s and 70s.

John Gilbert Blacktop, who went on the run for nine days following his conviction, has been imprisoned for 21-years for a catalogue of offending on five young victims.

The 81-year-old, of Morecambe, Lancashire, was sentenced in his absence last month after he failed to attend Bradford Crown Court where a jury had earlier convicted him of 33 counts of indecent assault, one count of rape and one count of attempted rape.

The abuse, which was committed in Lancaster and Stockton, involved five girls aged between five and 14 at the time, said Lancashire Police.

Blacktop was formerly a choirmaster and church organist at Christ Church, Wyresdale Road in Lancaster, where some of the abuse occurred between 1974 and 1977.

He was reportedly sighted in Blackpool and Cleveleys after he failed to attend court in Bradford and eventually handed himself in at Blackpool Police Station on April 8.

Blacktop, of Marine Road West, received a six-month jail term for failing to surrender, which will run concurrently to his 21-year sentence for the sexual offences.

He was arrested and charged in 2016 after a cold case review by Lancashire Police’s Operation Fervent team, a unit set up in January 2015 to investigate the historical sexual abuse of children.

Andy Woodmass, of Operation Fervent, said: “John Blacktop is a predatory sex offender who preyed on young girls to satisfy his own depraved sexual desires. What is all the more sinister is how he targeted these youngsters and groomed them before carrying out his abuse, which in some cases was committed over a number of years.

“I would like to give special mention to the victims who had the strength to come forward and report what had happened to them. They have behaved with dignity throughout this investigation and without their support this prosecution simply would not have been possible.”

Speaking after the hearing, a NSPCC spokesman said: “Blacktop’s long campaign of abuse will have had a devastating impact on his young victims. All have shown a great deal of courage in coming forward and recounting their horrific ordeals and we hope each has received all possible help and support.

“This case is proof that survivors of abuse can speak out about their experiences with the confidence they will be listened to – no matter how much time has passed.”

 

 

 

 

 




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