A PAEDOPHILE who escaped justice for two decades because police didn’t believe his victim has been jailed for almost seven years.

The girl first went to police 20 years ago but no action was taken against Keith Royal because she wasn’t believed, Burnley Crown Court heard.

But she went back to police in May this year, the defendant was charged and owned up in court.

Sentencing Royal to six years and eight months behind bars, Recorder Suzanne Goddard, QC, said: “In May 2013, she decided she would report this matter to the police, feeling, perhaps because of things she had read and heard of, there would be a different approach to the investigation now.”

Royal struck decades ago when he lived in the Accrington area.

Robert Golinski, prosecuting, told the hearing Royal repeatedly made the girl, who also lived in Hyndburn at the time, perform sex acts on him, committed indecent acts on her and ordered her to touch him.

He told the girl what happened was their ‘private secret’ and said if she told anybody, she would get into trouble.

The victim, who later attempted suicide, was scared and ‘shaking like a leaf’.

She went to the police and Royal was questioned, but not charged.

But now Royal, described as a ‘lonely’ 67-year-old who was last year convicted of abducting a 13-year-old girl, is beginning a stretch behind bars.

He had earlier admitted four counts of indecency with a child and two allegations of indecent assault.

The defendant, more recently of Newstead in Rochdale, and said to be suffering angina and spinal problems, was ordered to sign the Sex Offenders' Register indefinitely.

He was also given a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, banning him from any unsupervised contact with children under 16 until further order.

In 2012, Royal was given a suspended jail term at Bolton Crown Court, after being convicted of the child abduction.

Mr Golinski said the victim of the indecency suffered flashbacks and sleepless nights over her ordeal and felt degraded and dirty.

She had had difficulties in relationships with men, had received counselling for depression and had attempted suicide.

Jeremy Lasker, for Royal, said: “They are about as bad examples of indecent assault as there can be."

Recorder Goddard said it was clear the offences had caused the victim a great deal of distress.

She said if the offences had been committed now, some of them would be classed as oral rape.

She told the defendant: “All of these incidents are extremely serious indeed.”

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