A child rapist was recorded on his works van dash cam asking his victim if he could ‘take a picture’, a court heard.

Ian Bailey, 56, molested his victim – a pre-teen girl – while taking her out in his works van. He groomed her, promising her money or meals at McDonald's in exchange for sex.

His vile behaviour was discovered when his boss looked at footage from the van’s dash cam. Bailey could be heard asking a girl, speaking in what sounded like a child’s voice, if he could ‘take a picture’ of her private parts.

Jailing him for 19 years on Monday and ordering he serve an extended six years on licence, Judge Nigel Daly said: “In my judgement what you did was to take away this girl’s childhood and you’ve also destroyed her adult life as well. All to satisfy your deviant sexual interest.

“Even now, reading the pre-sentence report, you are incapable of acknowledging what you have done and the effect that this may have had upon her.”

In a victim personal statement read to Oxford Crown Court by prosecutor Alexandra Bull, the girl said: “I feel empty inside as if there is nothing there – literally nothing there, literally nothing.”

‘Half of the time’ she wanted a ‘new body’, she said. “If I could leave it I would,” she added.

The girl said she had struggled to sleep or eat and had suffered ‘meltdowns’ as a result of what happened to her.

Her mother said in a victim personal statement of her own, that her daughter’s ordeal was ‘a mother’s worst nightmare'. She added: “Everyone is a victim in this except him.”  

Oxford Mail: Ian Bailey Picture: TVPIan Bailey Picture: TVP

Bailey, of HMP Bullingdon but formerly of Banbury, was found guilty in February of four counts of rape of a child under-13, including two charges that alleged his victim was assaulted on at least 10 occasions. He pleaded guilty to inciting a child under-13 to engage in sexual activity and making an indecent image of a child.

Judge Daly told the lawyers at Monday’s sentencing hearing: “I was shocked by what I heard of what she was saying when all this was going on in the van and the way in which she said it - and also in the matter of fact way she described things as if they were normal.”

Sentencing Bailey, the judge said he ‘clearly thought this is normal behaviour as well’. He concluded that the defendant presented a risk of serious harm to the public and particularly to pre-pubescent girls.

Mitigating, Sumita Mahtab-Shaikh said her client had been doing courses while in prison and had applied for a job in the prison’s gardens. His parents were in their 70s and 80s.

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