A York man who went on the run after being convicted of a child sex offence has been jailed for three years.
David Stannard, 62, was found guilty of inciting a boy to engage in sexual activity following a trial at York Crown Court in November.
But he failed to turn up for sentence in January and went on the run in Blackpool, where he was found on the street and arrested.
Stannard was finally brought to justice today after the court heard how his actions against the boy had had a profound effect on the youngster.
Prosecutor Louise Reevell said that Stannard had exposed himself and asked the boy to touch him on an intimate part of his body and that he “wouldn’t tell anybody”.
During the incident at a property in York in 2021, the “distressed” boy refused to touch him and looked away.
The matter was reported to police but upon his initial arrest Stannard denied the offence and the case went to trial, forcing the child to give evidence.
The boy’s father said that since the incident his son was “no longer the happy, confident boy he (used to be)”.
The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, no longer felt confident enough to walk home on his own from school, fearing that “someone was going to follow him and that (Stannard) was going to come after him and snatch him away”.
His childhood had been “destroyed” and he was afraid that “someone will harm him”.
Living in a B&B
Stannard, of Lowther Terrace, York, had a long and varied criminal career dating back to the early 1970s and which comprised 20 previous convictions for 45 offences. He had serious violence, arson, shoplifting, drug matters and fraud on his rap sheet, though nothing for sexual offending.
Glen Parsons, mitigating, said that Stannard’s offence against the boy was a “form of aberration” and that his client’s failure to turn up at court in January, after being released on bail pending sentence, was a “mark of how his life had fallen apart”.
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He claimed that Stannard had moved to Blackpool because he and his home had been attacked following the trial – although the prosecution and sentencing judge noted there had been no recorded attacks between the end of the trial and the initial sentence date in January.
“He ended up in a B&B but ended up on the streets until he was picked up by police,” added Mr Parsons.
Judge Simon Hickey said that Stannard was responsible for the boy losing his confidence and “like many such victims he feels he’s to blame”.
Stannard was jailed for three years for the sexual offence and ordered to serve an additional one month consecutively for failing to surrender to the court. He was also ordered to sign on the sex-offenders’ register for life.
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