SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing, Judge Miller said:

"Edward Stanton, you were convicted after trial of eleven charges involving the physical and sexual abuse of vulnerable children and young people who were entrusted to your care in the course of your employment within three children’s homes in Scotland between May 1985, when you were aged 33, and April 1994, when you were aged 42.

The crimes of which you have been convicted include not only the repeated physical abuse of two boys but also the sexual abuse of eight other children and young people, both male and female. All but one of the complainers was aged under 16 at the time of these offences. Your crimes included the rape of a girl then aged under 10 and multiple other penetrative sexual offences some of which would, if committed today, meet the modern definition of rape.

The jury found that, in the course of committing a penetrative sexual assault upon a girl who would then have been in her early teens, you also endangered her life by pushing her head into a pillow, placing your hands around her throat and restricting her breathing. According to that complainer’s evidence, you also threatened to kill her if she told anyone what you had done to her. The jury also found that, on two occasions, you compelled a young man who would then have been in his late teens to perform oral sex on you and then gave him money for doing that. Most of the complainers were subjected to your crimes on more than one occasion.

Crimes of this nature are self-evidently very serious. However your crimes were aggravated by the very significant breach of trust which they involved. They were committed against vulnerable children and young people during periods in their lives when they had to be accommodated in residential care facilities. During those already difficult periods of their lives they should have been able to look to you, a member of staff, for care and support. Instead you abused them in the ways which are described in the charges of which you have been found guilty. This breach of trust is clearly a very significant aggravating feature of each of the crimes of which you were convicted.

The lasting impact which your crimes had on a number of the complainers was clear from the obvious difficulty which they had in describing their experiences when they gave evidence decades later during your trial and from victim impact statements provided by a number of the complainers.

I note from your schedule of previous convictions that you were sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court in 1996 to 13 years’ imprisonment for 11 sexual offences and again in 2021 to 42 months’ imprisonment for a further two sexual offences. All of those offences were apparently committed against boys aged under 16 and, according to your criminal justice social work report, all of those offences were committed in generally similar circumstances to the crimes for which you are to be sentenced today, in that they were committed against children who were in residential care, when you were a member of care staff who therefore held a position of trust.

During the intervening period between those two convictions you received three further sentences of imprisonment at Liverpool Crown Court in 2013, 2016 and 2018 for offences relating to downloading and possessing indecent images of children and for breach of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order.  

Your criminal justice social work report notes that you continue to deny your guilt in relation to the offences for which you are to be sentenced today, but that you acknowledge that you are sexually attracted to children. The report assesses you as presenting a very high risk of further sexual offending against children.  I also note from the report that you are now aged 73 and that you have a number of health issues and reduced mobility, as a result of which you now require to use a wheelchair.  

I have had regard to everything said on your behalf by your senior counsel this morning. It is clear that only a significant sentence of imprisonment would be appropriate to recognise the serious nature of the crimes of which you have been convicted and the level of risk which you continue to present to children. The option of an extended sentence is not available because none of the crimes for which you are to be sentenced was committed prior to 30 September 1998, when the legislation which provides for extended sentences came into force.

The jury clearly regarded charges 1 and 9 – the two charges involving non-sexual assault – as part of a single course of conduct. They clearly also regarded all of the other charges of which you were convicted – which relate to sexual offences – as part of a single course of conduct. I therefore intend to treat each of these groups of charges as a single course of conduct for sentencing purposes, which I will deal with by imposing a single ‘cumulo’ sentence covering each group of charges, rather than imposing a separate sentence for each charge.

In relation to the charges involving sexual offences (charges 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11 and 12), you are sentenced to a cumulo period of 15 years’ imprisonment backdated to 2 June 2023, when you were first remanded in custody. In relation to the charges involving non-sexual assault (charges 1 and 9), you are sentenced to a cumulo period of 18 months’ imprisonment, which will run concurrently with the period of 15 years and which is also backdated to 2 June 2023.

I am required by law to explain that, if I had to sentence you in relation to each of these charges individually, in isolation from the other charges, I would have imposed the following sentences:

Charge 1 – 12 months’ imprisonment

Charge 2 – 8 years’ imprisonment

Charge 3 – 2 years’ imprisonment

Charge 4 – 8 years’ imprisonment

Charge 5 – 18 months’ imprisonment

Charge 6 – 12 months’ imprisonment

Charge 7 – 4 years’ imprisonment

Charge 8 – 6 months’ imprisonment

Charge 9 – 12 months’ imprisonment

Charge 11 – 10 years’ imprisonment

Charge 12 – 2 years’ imprisonment

Having regard to the length of the overall period which would have resulted if I had imposed a separate sentence for each charge, to the overlap in time between these offences, to the fact that the jury accepted that the sexual offences formed a single course of criminal conduct and to your age and state of health now, the cumulo sentences which I have imposed, and which result in a single period of 15 years’ imprisonment, are appropriate.

In relation to the charges relating to sexual offences, you will continue to be subject to the notification requirements of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 for an indefinite period.

I will also direct the clerk of court to notify Scottish Ministers of your conviction for these offences, in terms of Section 7 of the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007."