Face of predator who groomed vulnerable teen
“Mum, why is he saying I’m lying? Why is he saying he never did this stuff to me?’
“I was scared of going to court because I was a witness as well. I was terrified- I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I was on that dock and I couldn’t speak. “I was worried about letting him down. Cannon subjected the 18- year- old to months of abuse including squeezing his bum, touching him over his clothing, kissing him on the lips and rubbing his privates over his clothing. But his mother says the abuse was far worse.
She said: “When they were out he would say things like ‘ this is a quicker way’ but it wasn’t- it was a longer but more private way. There were times where Cannon would do a pee outside and tell my son to look. And times he had an erection and would say to my son ‘ that’s your faultyou did this’. Any time my boy went to the toilet, he was standing right outside.
“He would try and provide him with drink and sometimes would get quite angry that he wasn’t drinking. The scariest time was when he took him up a dark alleyway and my son had to run away from him because he thought he was genuinely going to rape him. He told me that he wanted to kill himself and he was crying all the time.”
The boy broke down and told his mother everything. It took him two days to provide his statement due to the emotional stress. His mother believes the teen is autistic and can be “unpredictable”.
She said: “It wasn’t just like an ‘ average’ person that you’d maybe notice if something was wrong. He told me he was going to meet him and I was like ‘ oh you don’t know him’ but they’d been talking on the football page.
“Even though he’s like a child- he is 18 and I can’t keep him here all the time.
“I can’t wrap him up in cotton wool. He needs to go live his life.”
Twisted Cannon, who will be sentenced next week, even added her as a friend on Facebook.
She added: “He used to send me jokes to try and befriend me. And I think it was because he knew that if I stopped speaking to him then I knew something.”