SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing Judge Young made the following remarks in court:

"Russell Conn, you were found guilty by a jury of four charges of sexual offending.

I see from the report that you continue to deny your guilt.

However, you will understand that I sentence you on the basis of the jury verdict.

Your offending was against three victims.

Charge 2 involved repeated indecent assaults between 1999 and 2001 on a boy aged between 14 and 16. These included penile oral penetration. That would now be regarded as rape.

Charge 4 involved indecent assaults between 2004 and 2005 on a boy aged between 15 and 16. These were far less serious, but they took place at a residential school where you were working.

Charges 5 and 6 both involved the third victim. Charge 5 was between 2013 and 2018 when he was between 15 and 19. This included oral and anal rape. Charge 6 took place on a single occasion when the victim was in his early twenties. You came to his home and raped him there.

Each of these offences includes certain factors that can be regarded as aggravations. These include the following. The ages of the victims and the difference between your age and theirs.  

You groomed the victims. Some of the offending clearly involved planning. At times you used force. At times you made threats.

You breached trust. You met your first victim as a family friend and then as a football coach. Two of the victims worked with you with their family's knowledge. You abused them in the course of the working day, sometimes in work vehicles, sometimes at your home, and sometimes in the buildings where you were working. You abused another victim at the school where he was a resident pupil and you were a childcare worker entrusted with his care.

The last offence involved you coming to the complainer's own home where you entered uninvited and raped him in his own bedroom.

All of these are aggravations of your offending behaviour.

Both of the complainers in the more serious offences have provided statements that explain how your actions have affected their lives. I will not go into these in detail to preserve their privacy.

However, these demonstrate what can be described as a devastating effect on their lives. They speak feeling intense isolation and hopelessness as they grew up, and to this day. The damage you caused to their self-esteem and self-confidence meant they were not able to develop as they should have done, to build relationships and to enjoy productive lives. They have suffered from self-destructive behaviours and mental health input continues to this day. Your actions harmed them, but also their families who did not know the reasons for their behaviour and could not help. The psychological effects are severe.

The Justice Social Work Report emphasises that you deny all involvement in these offences. You deny any sexual interest in children or males. Indeed, you say that one of your victims blackmailed you into continuing a relationship.

You are assessed as moderate or average risk of both general offending and further sexual offending.

In your favour, you retain the support of some members of your family. It can be said that you have worked throughout your life, although that is tempered by the fact that you took advantage of this to offend. You had only a couple of minor convictions before 2022. However, you were offending against children from the mid 90s.

I will impose non-harassment orders, preventing any approach, contact or communication with the complainers in the case. For the complainers in charges 2, 5 and 6, these will be indefinite.

For the complainer in charge 4, this will be for ten years.

Having regard to the principles of sentencing, looking at these charges individually, I would have imposed the following sentences:

Charge 2 including repeated oral penetration, 8 years

Charge 4, involving abuse of a child in your care in a residential school, 2 years

Charge 5 involving oral and anal penetration 10 years

Charge 6 involving anal penetration in the victim's home 7 years

Charges 5 and 6 would be concurrent, as they involve the same complainer. The others would be consecutive.

However, I have to consider whether this would result in an excessively high sentence, and also your current situation as a serving prisoner.

If I had been sentencing without regard to your existing sentence, I would have imposed a cumulo sentence for all charges of 14 years.

You are currently serving a sentence of 9 years imposed in 2022. This is for five charges of sexual abuse of children, including a single charge of rape. These are very similar charges

To the offences that bring us here today. They apparently include offending during a period that overlaps with the current offences against victims of a similar age.

The authorities did not know about the current offences when you were convicted in 2022. Nevertheless, it is not appropriate to impose a consecutive sentence that does not take account of your existing sentence.

Taking this together, I will today impose a cumulo sentence of 7 years. The reason that it is a lower figure is that it will be consecutive to the 9 year sentence  In other words, it will not start to run until you have completed your ongoing nine-year sentence.

As a result, the notification period for the Sexual Offences Act 2003, will be indefinite."