Vile abuser jailed for raping boy
APAEDOPHILE raped a young boy and offered him ‘rewards’ like ice cream or 50p to stay silent about the horrifying abuse.
Paul Mannion, 63, of Crowe Avenue, Warrington, was sent down for eight years at Liverpool Crown Court for the campaign of vile abuse, which took place in Widnes in the 1970s.
Mannion had pleaded guilty to eight counts including sexual assault, inciting a child under 13, and one of rape.
The pleas were entered on February 12 when his victim was imminently due to give evidence under cross-examination for the scheduled trial, which was then abandoned. His victim described certain types of abuse happening “regularly” and on at least 10 occasions each - all while he was well under the age of 10. Nicholas Williams, prosecuting, recounted harrowing details of how the teenage Mannion preyed on his young victim over several years, warning him not to tell anyone what was happening because “they wouldn’t believe him and they would go mad”.
He also offered “rewards” such as 50p or ice cream to seal the boy’s silence. Mannion, who abused the child while he himself was a teenager and while he was both under and over the age of 18, instigated the abuse by asking the infant if he “wanted to play tiddies”.
His victim kept quiet about his ordeal for decades and buried his trauma in drink.
A victim personal statement said he had been afraid as a boy that his friends would laugh at him or avoid him if he divulged being abused.
He said Mannion had “robbed my childhood” and had a “grimy smell as though he hadn’t showered” that “will never go away” from his memory.
Describing the trauma, Mr Williams said: “He felt like he was a ‘fraud’, his life was a ‘big lie’ - he had his secret.
“It made him feel like he wasn’t a man - ‘I know I was a child but it’s been with me since’.
“He had nightmares. He couldn’t get the smell of the defendant out of his head.”
The court heard Mannion was imprisoned in the late 1980s for raping a separate young child, having pleaded guilty.
Jo Maxwell, appearing for the defence, said Mannion’s guilty pleas meant his victim and other witnesses were “spared the ordeal” of giving evidence, and she cited the Manning principle of reducing sentences to account for the harsher conditions during the pandemic.
She added he was in “ill health” having suffered heart failure, type-2 diabetes, as well as spells of “suicidal ideation”, and had not committed any offences since the period of abuse decades ago.
Miss Maxwell expressed no objections to the terms of the proposed - and subsequently approved - Sexual Harm Prevention Order on Mannion, which was made to last for life.
Judge Stuart Driver, QC, presiding, sentenced Mannion to eight years in prison and placed him on the sex offenders register for life.
Sending Mannion down, Judge Driver said: “One aggravating feature is the severe ongoing, indeed lifelong impact that your offending had upon your victim.
“But that count (of rape) is not an isolated offence, it was the culmination of years of abuse.”
The judge also ordered a victim surcharge.