12:00pm Saturday 20th March 2010
By Wendy Barlow
A PENSIONER who twice assaulted a little girl and was said to have shown her a ‘sex book’ is starting a 12 month jail term.
‘Lonely’ widower Harold Lord, 74, groped the frightened victim when she was six and seven years old when they both lived in Padiham.
He had threatened the child not to tell anyone after the first offence and she did not.
He was found out about a year later, after the girl left a note on her mother’s pillow telling her what the defendant had done, Burnley Crown Court heard.
The hearing was told Lord struck two years after the death of his wife of more than 50 years, and his barrister claimed he had been bereft, depressed and confused and was seeking close, although inappropriate, contact with a female.
Lord, who has since moved to Bournemouth, admitted two charges of sexual assault on a girl under 13. He had no previous convictions.
Judge Beverley Lunt told the defendant the offences caused her grave concern and his behaviour had been cruel and damaging.
She said: “You threatened her not to tell anybody or else and it worked.”
Lord was placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years, banned from working with children for life and was made subject of a sexual offences prevention order, prohibiting him from associating with youngsters under 16.
Richard Littler, prosecuting, said last June, the victim’s mother found a note from her daughter on her pillow.
She told officers Lord show-ed her a sex book, which she described as a magazine, and had talked to her about the age to have sex.
Mr Littler said Lord was questioned and claimed he had touched the girl accidentally when ‘acting the fool’.
Andrew Nuttall, for Lord, said the offences were aberrations and the risk for the future was relatively low.
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