WESTCLIFF PAEDOPHILE JAILED AFTER ABUSING CHILD IN POOL
A south Essex paedophile has been jailed after claiming he had to abuse little girls because his wife wouldn’t sleep with him.His crimes were so brazen that he would molest his victims in the presence of others, even abusing one in the former Warrior Square swimming pool.
The victim remembered him “smirking” as he did it.
Judge Shane Collery KC said the victims had suffered “terror and humiliation”.
When a probation worker interviewed Coffey ahead of sentence, he was “struck by his apparent lack of emotion”.
The interviewer saw “nothing that betrayed any sense of guilt, shame or remorse.” “There appears to have been some displacement of responsibility by the defendant onto others,” said prosecutor Mark Tomassi.
Coffey told the interviewer he had been in "a sexless marriage".
“Allied to the appropriate level of disgust and disapprobation of his behaviour is the idea conveyed to the court in this short phrase – ‘What else was I supposed to do?’ – because sexual congress was being denied to him by his married partner,” said Mr.
Tomassi.
Coffey, of Kenilworth Gardens in Westcliff, was described as an “opportunistic” paedophile with “a pre-pubescent sexual interest”, who “would seek sexual gratification from a child when the opportunity arose.” But Coffey’s most serious crimes – which would today be classed as rape and carry a possible life sentence – were committed in the 1980s, when the maximum sentence was five years.
So while Judge Collery found he posed a “significant risk” of committing further offences, the law prevented him from imposing an extended sentence for public protection.
Coffey began his “shameful” and “disgraceful” campaign of abuse in Wickford, before moving to Thorpe Bay and continuing to commit sexual offences in Southend.
Judge Collery said Coffey had “groomed” and “degraded” his victims.
He would tell his victims they were “naughty” and that they had to keep what they were doing secret.
“It’s designed to make it like the child is complicit in what is taking place, that both of them are involved in this,” said Judge Collery.
Coffey pleaded guilty to ten child sex offences committed between 1981 and 2018.
The judge noted that these do not represent the full extent of his crimes.
His victims were left battling panic attacks, heart palpitations, nightmares, clinical depression, and psychosis.
A probation report found Coffey’s guilty pleas were more about acceptance of guilt than genuine remorse.
Judge Collery sentenced Coffey to 11 years and eight months in prison, of which he will serve up to half before being released.
He will also be on the sex offenders register for life.
