Ex-children’s home boss found guilty of sexual abuse but can’t be punished

A JURY has concluded that a former soldier did sexually abuse boys in the 1970s.

But Norman Sully will not face any prosecution because he suffers from dementia.

A two-week trial at Derby Crown Court heard how the 84-year-old of carried out the sex attacks when he worked as the superintendent of Elmhurst Children’s Home, in Derby.

At the conclusion of the “finding of fact” trial – which was to determine whether or not he carried out the acts – the jury spent more than eight hours reaching its verdict.

The jury of 10 women and two men found that Sully, of John F Kennedy Gardens, Chaddesden, Derby, sexually assaulted four former Derby boys. But they found him not guilty of an allegation by a man who claimed Sully sexually assaulted him at Bracken House children’s home, in Bulwell, at around the same time.

Judge Shaun Smith QC gave Sully the only punishment available to him by law – an absolute discharge.

He told the jury: “This is no reflection at all on the complainants who bravely came to court and told you what happened to them.”

Prosecutor Dawn Pritchard, when she opened the case to the jury at the start of the trial, said the boys at Elmhurst often asked Sully for cigarettes and he invited them into his office, where he allowed them a drag of his cigarette. “He would smoke and blow smoke into their mouths and when this happened their lips made contact rather like a kiss, which he would do in this way whilst holding the back of the boys head.”

Miss Pritchard said the second victim was touched by Sully - a former soldier and Rolls-royce worker - while he was laying in his bed at Elmhurst.

Another boy was in bed when he woke to find his covers off and Sully touching him sexually.

“The next day he reported this and the police became involved.

“A statement was taken and he was told he was a liar.”

The identities of the alleged victims are protected by law.

A “trial of fact” meant that the jury was not asked to find Sully either guilty or not guilty but instead to determine whether or not he carried out the acts that were alleged against him.

This is because the judge had found him unfit to face trial due to his diagnosis of dementia. It also means he cannot face any ordinary form of prosecution.