‘POUNDSHOP JIMMY SAVILE’ CAGED FOR 16 YEARS Monster told victims he was Soft Cell’s road manager

A ‘POUNDSHOP Jimmy Savile’ has been jailed after he groomed his victims by pretending to be a ‘fixer’ who could make dreams come true.

Michael Murphy, 72, posed as a music industry agent to groom young girls and claimed he was a road manager for synth pop pioneers Soft Cell.

Between 1980 and 2007 he befriended the families of his victims.

Murphy would speak of his connections to the music industry and would get tickets for concerts for the PIONEERS: Soft Cell victims and their immediate families.

Murphy knew one victim’s parents and often visited them at their south-east London home.

They allowed him to read the girl a bedtime story and he took the opportunity to sexually abuse her.

The victim disclosed the abuse endured to friends and family in her teenage years. SICKO: Michael Murphy has been compared to Savile

The second victim contacted police in 2016, after a programme on television about abuse and decided to come forward and report what had happened to her.

This victim was about nine years old when she and her mother went on holiday to Torquay, Devon, where they met Murphy. At the time, he told them he worked in the music business and was in a band.

Following the holiday, Murphy chatted over the phone with the victim and her mother.

Over the years he sent the victim birthday cards, Easter cards and Valentine cards with messages stating he loved her and missed her.

The victim felt Murphy had brainwashed her, so much that when she was 16 years old she ran away to live with him for around five years in London.

The third victim described how in the early 90s, she travelled with Murphy to meet a family member in the United States.

Whilst she was sleeping, Murphy sexually abused her.

A number of months later, he went to the victim’s home, followed her into her bedroom and sexually abused her.

Prosecuting at Woolwich Crown Court, Daniel Fugallo said: “He posed as a fixer who could make children’s dreams come true. In reality he was a Poundshop Jimmy Savile.”

Murphy was arrested in April 2016 and, following an in-depth investigation, he was charged with numerous sex offences.

Judge Philip Shorrock told him: “Whether you are still attracted to young girls I do not know. In the past you have been.

“Over a substantial period of time you were a predatory paedophile.

“If a girl was abused in the way which you abused these three it can stop them from enjoying future sexual relationships with their partners. The total sentence is 16 years.”

Murphy, of Brockley, south-east London, had denied four counts of indecent assault on a girl under 16, two counts of gross indecency with a girl under 16, one count of rape of a child, two counts of sexual activity with a child.