‘DEVIL INCARNATE’ JAILED FOR 31 YRS

Victims reveal their hell as Bennell caged

PAEDOPHILE football coach Barry Bennell was yesterday branded the “devil incarnate” as he was jailed.

The Recorder of Liverpool Clement Goldstone QC handed out 454 years worth of sentences for thousands of sex attacks on young players.

It is one of the largest sentences ever seen in a British court. The judge branded the crimes committed by the ex-scout of Premier League giants Manchester City and youth coach of League Two club Crewe Alexandra “sheer evil”.

The sentences will run concurrently meaning Bennell, 64, will serve the longest individual one, which is 31 years.

The self-confessed “monster” – who has been jailed three times previously for abusing footballers – “may well die in prison”, the judge said. Bennell has twice beaten cancer after having part of his tongue removed and is now fed via a tube in his stomach.

One of his victims Gary Cliffe, 47, had to be restrained by a policeman and court official after charging at him in the dock shouting: “Barry, Barry… why?’’

Now a detective constable after his football career crashed when he was abused hundreds of times, Mr Cliffe had just told Liverpool Crown Court of his 30 years of “hell” since an ordeal which “ruined my life”.

He had been left a “nervous wreck”, “depressive”, plagued by “irrational thoughts” and medicated for life.

Instead of returning to his seat in a public gallery packed with tearful victims and their relatives, Mr Cliffe, who waived his right to anonymity, dashed across the courtroom towards the glass-fronted dock.

Fellow victim Chris Unsworth, who also waived his right to anonymity, told how his professional dream had been “shattered”.

He said: “I often have sleepless nights, waking up sweating and out of breath thinking he is with me. It is like it happened yesterday. “The flashbacks are often followed by uncontrollable vomiting. I have bad dreams and bouts of terrible guilt.

“I often thought of ending my life.

“I had to put this episode of terror in a locked room in my brain.

“All these years it was like a door in my vision with many chains and multiple locks on, it was hell on earth to try and keep it there.’’

Last week Bennell was convicted of 34 indecent assaults, seven male rapes and two attempted rapes after a six-week trial.

He had pleaded guilty to seven more indecent assaults.

All are specimen charges relating to multiple attacks on 12 boys aged eight to 15 between 1979 and 1991.

Several victims said they had been abused hundreds of times.

Police are probing claims by another 86 alleged victims, but Bennell is unlikely to face more charges.

The judge told him: “Your behaviour towards these boys in grooming and seducing them before subjecting them to, in some cases, the most serious, degrading and humiliating abuse was sheer evil.

“You stole their childhoods and their innocence to satisfy your own perversion.’’