Rapist caught 36 years on – after being put in same cell as his victim
A FATHER of four was unmasked as a paedophile rapist when he was put in the same prison cell as his victim 36 years after the assaults.
Gary Mottershead had spent over three decades believing he had got away with his crimes after he raped and molested a young boy in the 1980s.
But in 2015 the 50-year-old was detained on suspicion of assaulting his wife and was remanded in custody. By chance, he was sent to the same cell in which his victim, now 43, was being held for burglary. The victim – who cannot be named – at first did not recognise his cellmate at Strangeways Prison, Manchester. But when he realised Mottershead was the paedophile who abused him, he told a prison guard.
In a subsequent statement he addressed the rapist, saying: ‘I have lived with this all my life and kept it a secret. Prison was the last place I expected you to be and I felt I couldn’t get away from it.’ Mottershead denied the allegations, but a jury at Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, found him guilty of one rape and six sexual assaults. He was jailed for six years.
The court heard the abuse probably took place about 20 times between 1981 and 1983 when Mottershead was 15 and he had been asked to babysit the victim, then aged six, while his parents went out for the evening.
He would ply the boy with cider before coercing him into sexual encounters saying it was their ‘little secret’ and would usher the victim’s older sister to her bedroom so he and the boy could be alone.
Tormented by his childhood experience, the boy, who came from a ‘respectable’ family, turned to a life of alcohol, drugs and organised crime.
Prosecuting, Mark Kellet told the court: ‘[The abuse] continued for a period of time and the defendant threatened the boy that if he told anyone he would sexually assault his sister. The offences took place between 1981 and 1983 but were not reported by the victim until August 2015 when the defendant was subsequently arrested.’
Sentencing Mottershead, who is from Sale, judge Timothy Mort said: ‘What you did caused serious emotional distress and has had a bearing on his involvement with crime.
‘You may have been emotionally immature at the time but you were physically mature.
‘You knew very well that what you did was wrong, in the way you threatened his sister.
‘You may have been immature but you were not so immature that you didn’t know how to control your victim.’