A SEVEN-year jail sentence has been handed to an elderly man who sexually abused two children, one when he was a teenager and the second when he was in his 60s.

Dennis Hawkins, 68, of Saxon Court, Wessex Way, Bicester, was on trial at Oxford Crown Court where a jury heard he assaulted a young boy in the 1970s, followed by a young girl in the late 2010s.

For the first victim, he was found guilty of 11 counts of child sex abuse between 1970 and 1978 and for the second victim he was found guilty of four counts of child abuse between 2016 and 2018.

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Oxford Mail:

Hawkins was sentenced to six years imprisonment with an extended licence period of 12 months at the same court on Thursday (May 30) by Judge Michael Gledhill.

An impact statement was read out by both victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, ahead of the sentencing.

The first read: “I’ve never been able to get close to any male.

"I don’t have any close male friends because I’m frightened of it happening again.

“I’ve never been able to sit on Santa’s lap in the grotto. I became a naughty boy so everyone would hate me and not want to be with me, it was much easier to be hated.

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“I’ve a beautiful, supportive wife but this keeps me very distant from her. I’ve hid myself away.

“I’ve missed out on all my childhood and I’m still missing out on my adulthood. I suffer from stress, anxiety, depression and have no self-worth.

“Dennis, I forgive you. I have to do this to move on but now you are a convicted paedophile. May the devil take your soul.”

The second victim read: “I always used to be a happy and smiley girl but after this happened I started to shy away.

“I became really unhappy. It became so bad I would self-harm regularly. I no longer felt safe. He has destroyed a part of my life but not all of it.

“I have so much more of life to live and I won’t let him take that away from me.”

The court heard Hawkins has no previous convictions. He faced no separate penalty for the offences against the first victim due to being aged 14 or under at the time of the offences.

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Sentencing, Judge Gledhill said: “You behaved in an absolutely appalling manner.”

Hawkins could be seen crying and shaking his head before being sentenced, saying: “I didn’t do anything. They're liars.”

He was also made subject to an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order.