Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Transgender sex offender gets 11 years
A TRANSGENDER serial sex offender has been jailed for 11 years.
Jacinta Brooks claimed to be a teenage boy in a bid to groom a girl, aged 12.
Brooks, 41, known as Duncan Smart but who now lives as a woman, sent her explicit messages.
The traumatised child quit school, Southampton crown court heard.
Her mum said not being able to protect her from “this pathetic excuse of a person” will “haunt me”.
Judge Nicholas Rowland called Brooks, who had served 13 years for attacking another young girl, a “danger to children”.
Brooks, of Winchester, admitted inciting a child to engage in sex and having indecent images.
He has been sent to allmale Winchester prison. played the long-suffering adult character keeping the peace between Zippy, George and Bungle.
In 2002, he said the reason for the show’s enduring popularity was that it was full of “magic, innocence and imagination”.
He added: “Practically all the time people come up to me, and it really breaks me up, because they thank me for being part of their childhood. It makes me want to cry.”
But again he struggled for work, other than appearing on Pointless Celebrities alongside Sally James, and on Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
After one long stretch out of work he even stacked shelves in a supermarket, just for something to do.
He said in 2014: “For four months I worked two nights a week shelfstacking in my local Sainsbury’s.
“I didn’t do it for the money, it was just that I’d been out of work for five months and was hanging around the house becoming a pain. My wife told me to do something.”
He even drove a taxi for a while. But he had no regrets. “When I look back, I feel very lucky,” he said. “I’ll always be grateful for Rainbow and the life it’s given me.”
TV hypnotist Chris Hughes tweeted: “Zippy Bungle and George will be lost without you! Paint the whole world with a rainbow.”
Radio broadcaster Tony Shepherd said: “Goodbye to yet another part of our childhood.”