MY FATHER.
Daughter of most notorious sex attacker says he should He must never get out of jail because he will never stop attacking girls. I know, I was one of them
daughter of one of Scotland’s most notorious sex offenders has warned that he should never be freed from jail.
The woman spoke out to reveal her own ordeal at the hands of her father, the serial sex attacker John Bermingham, and insist he will always be a danger to women and girls.
She said: “He will never stop, ever. If he is allowed to leave prison, he will do it again. That isn’t a warning, that’s a fact, an absolute certainty.” Predator Bermingham, 53, who is banned from any contact with females, was jailed earlier this month for speaking to a woman walking her dog. When caught, he was carrying disguises to elude police surveillance teams.
The serial offender was previously jailed for 12 years after trying to rape an 11-year-old and an 18-year-old on the same day. After his release, he was charged but cleared by a jury of trying to abduct two little girls.
And, in her first interview, his 34-year-old daughter revealed that she was also his victim and described how he abused her as a child. Louise, not her real name, said: “He gets a thrill from attacking people. He did it to strangers but he did it to his own children too.” The woman said she was abused by Bermingham for almost a decade, from the age of six until she was 15, when the family moved to Scotland and she was taken into care.
She said: “The first memory I have is being on a long car journey with him, I had fallen asleep. I woke up and we were in a lay-by at the side of the road. He had moved my hands, made me touch him while I slept. He jumped and said I had scared him. I was around six or seven years old.
“He didn’t say anything, he just started the car again and continued driving.
“When I was still in primary school he started doing things to me all the time, everyweek.
“He said there was something wrong with me and he had to examine me, so I should take all my clothes off. He said nobody should know about it.”
Louise eventually confided in a friend at school, and social services, police and her mum were called in.
She gave a statement to the police but, Louise claims, her mother said Bermingham “would be killed in prison” and ordered her to withdraw her statement.
Louise said: “I had to tell the police I had made it up for attention. After that we moved away. We did a moonlight flit – literally overnight we packed our stuff and left.
“The second time I told the police was when we were in South Yorkshire. We were at home and I was screaming for him to stop. My brother jumped out of the window and phoned the police. “He wasn’t prosecuted then as they couldn’t find him. He bolted.”
The family packed their bags once again and moved – this time into tents. They spent two months camping across the country, enabling Bermingham to continue abusing Louise and avoid police and social services who were hunting him.
Eventually, Louise, her mother, who defended Bermingham to reporters when he was later convicted of attempted rapes, and her three brothers returned to Edinburgh where the children would be taken into care.
Louise said: “I have always been a private person, and I don’t really talk about my past.
“My foster family were incredible and they really helped.
“My foster mum got me in touch with Barnardo’s and I had counselling. After that things got better.
“I realised I just had to deal with it, otherwise it would destroy me.”
Two of her three brothers have also been convicted of serious sex attacks, including rape and attempted rape.
In court, it was said their childhoods were “highly sexualised” and Louise says her father’s offending blighted both the lives of her family and the lives of those her father and brothers attacked.
She said: “I’m not ashamed of what happened to me, but I’m embarrassed by my family. I don’t want to be associated with them, and everything they have done. “Whenever I hear about him attacking someone else, I think nothing is going to stop him. If he can abuse his own children he will do it to anyone.
“There’s nobody he won’t go after and the prison and courts, and police need to know that.
“He should be in solitary confinement too. When he is in prison, he’s locked away with all these other sex offenders.
“They all talk to each other, share ideas and information. It’s disgusting, and is making them more dangerous when they are released.
“He needs to be kept inside, it’s the only way to keep people safe.”
Bermingham is legally bound to avoid communicating with any women but, after being caught speaking to the woman walking her dog in Falkirk in May, he was found to be carrying three hats, two pairs of glasses and a spare jacket.
Stirling Sheriff Court heard he was the subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order eight years ago.
Jailing him for three years, Sheriff Wyllie Robertson said: “You were clearly intent on breaching this order. You had changed your appearance once during the course of this surveillance, and you went equipped to facilitate further changes.
“Only a significant sentence appropriate.”
Last year, Bermingham had been accused of offering two 10-year-old girls money to help him find a lost jacket. When arrested, he was discovered carrying condoms, sweets and sleeping pills in his possession but a jury found the abduction charges not proven.
In 2002, Bermingham was handed a 12-year jail term for attempting to rape an 11-year-old girl and an 18-year-old student within an hour of each other in November 2000.
is – Daughter of John
Bermingham