EX-POLICE OFFICER JAILED FOR CHILD SEX ABUSE IN LINCOLNSHIRE
A former police officer known as "the Jimmy Savile of the scouting world" has been sentenced to imprisonment for multiple sex assaults on boys.Ex scout-leader John Edward Bates, aged 68, exploited his trusted position to abuse four victims across Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire.
Although he denied 22 charges of indecent assault and indecency with a child, he was convicted of 18 after a trial.
Bates received a 20-year jail sentence at Lincoln Crown Court.
The assaults occurred between March 1972 and October 1989.
During the trial, evidence revealed Bates abused two boys while serving as a scout leader in Wittering, where he was part of the Royal Air Force.
Later, he became a scout leader in Spalding, Lincolnshire, during which time he abused two additional boys.
The judge, Simon Hirst, described him as a predatory man who betrayed the enormous trust placed in him, stating "You did them all real lasting damage - you did it for no other reason than to obtain sexual gratification for yourself." Victims described Bates as a "monster" and "the Jimmy Savile of the scouting world," with one calling his conviction "the beginning of the end of my 40-year...living hell." Outside court, Detective Sergeant Tim Wilkinson of Lincolnshire Police praised the victims for speaking out, emphasizing that Bates caused misery and upset by abusing the trust of boys who looked up to him.
Bates had previously served a four-year prison sentence for offences against young boys, imposed at Nottingham Crown Court in 1982.
Bates, who also served with Lincolnshire Police from 1976 to 1983, claimed that the victims had fabricated evidence.
