UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail
Former Church of England priest, 74, abused girls and boys at Barnardo’s home then savagely beat victims who tried to speak out
By ALEX WARD
A retired Church of England priest found guilty of a catalogue of historic sex attacks on young children at a Barnardo’s home has been jailed for 10 years.
Canon Gordon Rideout, 74, abused more than a dozen girls and boys at the now closed home at Ifield Hall in Crawley, West Sussex, over a four-year period.
The former Anglican clergyman from Polegate, East Sussex, also indecently assaulted two girls at an army site in Middle Wallop, Hampshire, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.
At Lewes Crown Court, Rideout was found guilty of 34 counts of indecent assault and two counts of attempted rape on 16 children between January 1962 and January 1973. He was cleared of one count of indecent assault on a boy at a second Barnardo’s home in Essex.
As he was sentenced today, the Bishop of Chichester, Dr Martin Warner, said Rideout had caused ‘immeasurable and destructive suffering’ over a long period of time.
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