UNITED KINGDOM
Chronicle
A Jehovah’s Witness is today beginning 13 years behind bars for horrific child sex crimes which church elders tried to cover up.
Gordon Leighton, a ministerial servant, at the Lambton Kingdom Hall in Washington, was convicted of a series of sexual assaults against one child and violent attacks on another, following a trial.
It emerged that the 53-year-old had confessed his sex crimes to church elders more than three years earlier, but the men refused to co-operate with the police investigation and only gave evidence at court after a judge brought a lengthy legal battle.
Now Leighton will be on the sex offenders’ register for life.
Jailing him yesterday at Newcastle Crown Court, Judge Penny Moreland told Leighton he had stolen his victims’ childhood years, saying: “You abused them, ruined their childhood, and caused untold damage.”
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