Latest Offenders Newport

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A SERIAL paedophile was caught in an online sting after a decoy tricked him by offering him two young girls for sex. Peter Warry, 46, of Chepstow Road, Newport, was the prey in an entrapment operation, prosecutor Matthew Roberts. Cardiff Crown Court heard the defendant thought he was grooming a 13-year-old girl but Sienna was a fictional character used to lure him in. Warry was also sharing vile child abuse images on social media via the Kik and WhatsApp platforms. He also had previous convictions for sexual crimes against children and was jailed at Derby Crown Court for 12 months in 2012 for distributing indecent images. Warrys latest offending occurred over the past 14 months. He pleaded guilty to the distribution and possession of indecent images of children. The defendant was found with 85 pictures at the most serious level of category A, 25 at category B and 19 at category C. Warry also admitted that he attempted to engage in sexual communication with a child and attempted to cause a child aged 13 to 15 to watch/look at an image of sexual activity. He also pleaded guilty to failing to comply with notification requirements. Ieuan Bennett, representing Warry, said in mitigation: He knows he needs help. His barrister added how his client said he had ruined his own life. Judge Huw Rees told the defendant: A decoy was offering you, unbelievably, two young girls for sex. He added: Your previous convictions are a serious aggravating factor in this case. You have said that your life has been left in ruins but you have nobody to blame for that but yourself. Warry was jailed for four years and four months and ordered to register as a sex offender for life. He was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order until 2036.

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A FORMER Andover athletics coach who manipulated, abused and violated schoolgirls, one as young as 11 years old, has been jailed for seven-and-a-half years.

Philip Banning, 68, pursued a horrific reign of abuse in Andover during the 1970s and 1980s.

Today he mouthed "sorry" to his victims after pleading guilty to 18 counts of indecent assault relating to four girls who were under the age of 16 at the time of the offences.

Prosecutor Tim Moores told Winchester Crown Court that Banning, who now lives in Penhow, Wales, had been an Olympic hopeful in his younger years.

He ran at an international level for Team GB before returning to Andover Athletics Club as a qualified coach where he met the four girls.

It is in this context that he came into contact with the four complainants, and in due course began to sexually abuse them to a greater or lesser degree, Mr Moores said.

Under the guise of acting as coach and mentor, he was pursuing a regime of abuse against certain members of the club.

The court heard that Banning would assault the girls during car rides home after training, as well as during sports massages.

One of the girls was aged just 11 years-old when she was assaulted in Bannings car, before he asked her, is this something youve done before?

Two of the girls were assaulted in a room under Bannings stairs at his home address, during a party where the children were allowed to drink alcohol, the court heard.

One of the girls bumped into Banning in Andover town centre, before he led her to a school field and abused her.

Three of the survivors in this case, now adult women, defiantly hit back at their abuser when reading their victim personal statements to the court.

You were my coach, and you were my teacher, and you held a position of trust, one of the women told the defendant as he sat in the dock.

You were meant to nurture a childs development, you were trained to safeguard children, but instead you chose to slowly manipulate, violate and sexually abuse me. I was left abused, violated and confused, still too young to understand the significance of this. I did not have the understanding of how sinister and insidious your motives were.

You took my childhood, my trust, my voice, my worth, and nearly my life.

The woman told the court that Banning had also given her a Valentines card when she was just 12 years old.

She continued: You said to me that this was your way of showing me your special love. But this was like a septic wound that was never allowed to heal. Even if it did scab over briefly, it was picked open by my own self-hatred.

Another survivor told the court that her first kiss as a child which was brutal and forceful was with Banning, which left her feeling shattered.

Banning mouthed sorry to the women in court as he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for the offences. He must also sign on the sex offenders register for life.

Sentencing Banning, Judge Keith Cutler CBE said: You are responsible for what everyone agrees was a grave abuse of trust.

What you were doing was grooming [the girls], abusing your position, and seeking them as your sexual relief, not caring really how that was to affect them, as clearly you can see it has.

Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Inspector Toby Elcock, said of the case: After initially denying the offences, Banning has now taken responsibility for his horrific reign of abuse, which has spared the victims having to go through a difficult trial process.

For these girls, this should have been an important time in their young lives. They were schoolchildren exploring their passion for sport, and this was ruined by Bannings appalling sexual appetite.

I hope they can now rest assured that justice has been served and Banning will not be able to harm another child.

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A popular Cardiff bar has defended its decision to allow a convicted sex offender to perform as a drag act during Pride weekend in Cardiff.

Darren Sewell, who performs under the stage name Crystal Couture, was included in a bill of acts at Wow Bar's Pride Without Prejudice free event on Sunday.

One person who was in the audience at the Churchill Way bar said he complained to staff and that several people walked out in disgust at the act, which he said included jokes about prolific child abuser Jimmy Saville.

In 1999, Sewell was convicted of four counts of rape of a boy under 16 and was sentenced to three years in a young offenders' institution.

On his release, he was banned from having contact with children. He was convicted in 2011 of breaching that order by working as a gymnastics and dance tutor with children in Cardiff.

Crystal Couture's official website describes the act as "for audiences large and small and of all ages" and "available for wedding, christening, birthdays, and celebrations if (sic) all types".

The event at Wow Bar referred to Pride on its flyer but had no affiliation with the official Pride Cymru Big Weekend.

The man, who preferred not to be named, said: "I never realised it was him initially. So when he came on stage someone else in the audience said do you know who that is?"

He said he found articles reporting criminal proceedings against Sewell on his phone, and made complaints to staff at the venue.

"Myself and the other people who I spoke to about it feel it's just giving such a bad message."

He added: "No laws (have been) broken but it's the morals towards the community. They are allowing sex offenders to promote us during Pride."

In 2011, Cardiff Crown Court heard Sewell, who was performing as a drag queen at Cardiff nightclub Minsky's at the time, had spent three years teaching gymnastics to children as young as nine.

None of the gymnastics clubs knew of his previous conviction.

Sewell was a teenager when he was convicted of rape and was 27 when he breached the order banning him from having contact with children.

For breaching the order, he was sentenced to a three-year sex offender's treatment programme, a 24-month supervision order, 300 hours unpaid work and a six-month curfew on electronic tag.

In a statement, representatives of Wow Bar confirmed that Darren Sewell performed at the club on Sunday, August 26, under the stage name Crystal Couture.

The statement read: "Mr Sewell, an established drag artist and singer, has preformed at many venues within Cardiff and around the country and is in demand due to his high polished performance.

"The managers of all these venues have, like us, been made well aware that Mr Sewell was placed on the sex offenders list for a crime he committed in 1999.

"We know this as Mr Sewell has a legal obligation to inform any employer of this fact. Like most, and we would hope all venues do; we researched, we also talked to other venues that employed Mr Sewell.

"Aware Mr Sewell is on the sex offenders list we have always been cautious when booking Mr Sewell: He will always arrive late and preform (sic) late to ensure no risk of children present, we inform the police that he will be preforming at the venue and his act is carefully monitored by management.

"With these measures in place and open communication to the police, we feel there to be no warranted risk to our customers; which will always be our top priority.

"Mr Sewell is a popular entertainer booked by hundreds of venues a year, all in full knowledge of his past crime and Sewell himself shamed on public media ever since but rightly or wrongly that is his on-going sentence.

"A customer on Sunday made his feelings known showing us an article from Argus (sic). He left but for us, if not most, it is such a conversation to hold in a noisy nightclub at that time of night, the debate never being the crime but what an individual feels the punishment should be.

"Mr Sewell's crime from 1999 is well known to the Cardiff scene but the demand to see his show is still supported heavily.

"All venues in Cardiff or outside have had to sit down and make a choice, what we have all decided maybe judged wrong but our venue, no venue, would ever put anyone at risk."

Wales Online contacted Darren Sewell for a comment on this story but none has been provided.

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A 26-year-old drama teacher who admitted having sex with a pupil has been spared a prison sentence.

Kelly Burgess, of Newport, had a seven-month relationship with the boy, Bristol Crown Court heard.

The matter came to light when the boy, aged between 16 and 17 at the time of the abuse, visited a sexual health clinic with Burgess after she developed symptoms of an infection.

Burgess was given a 10-month sentence, suspended for two years.

'Should have known better'

Judge Euan Ambrose told her: "You are a picture of misery in this courtroom.

"The relationship, albeit conducted as if between equals, was not a relationship between equals. You were older, you were his teacher and you should at all times have known better."

North Somerset District Council said in a statement after sentencing: "This was an isolated incident. The school followed the correct procedures and co-operated with the police."

Neither the school nor the boy can be identified for legal reasons.

The court heard Burgess and the teenager had sex at least once a week between January and August last year.

'Get the story straight'

When staff at the school noticed how close the relationship had become they informed the head teacher who challenged Burgess.

She denied the relationship was sexual and no further action was taken.

But after the visit to the sexual health clinic the police were alerted and an inquiry began.

When she was first arrested Burgess denied the offences, but when officers searched her home they discovered her mobile phone with a text message from the boy.

It read: "Got the police round. Don't text back, don't be scared.

"Just get the story straight for when they come for you."

Burgess later pleaded guilty to four sexual offences of breach of trust - engaging in a sexual act with a child between January and August 2013.