SEX offender Paul Gunning has been badly beaten up by fellow inmates at Bullingdon Prison, it is claimed.

A jury at Oxford Crown Court found Gunning, 45, guilty of four counts of indecent assault against an underage girl in a majority verdict.

He was remanded in custody and is due to be sentenced next month.

He was accused of molesting the girl between April 1994 and March of last year, when she was aged between ten and 13. Gunning denied all the charges.

His mother, Vivien Gunning, 69, who lives in south Oxfordshire, said: "My son went to prison last Wednesday and I've just been informed he has been severely beaten up - he's got a broken nose and two black eyes. He was set up right from the very beginning and Surely when they go into prison they are protected from this kind of thing? He was beaten up by three men."

Mrs Gunning, whose husband died recently, added: she was too upset to go and visit her son while he was remanded in custody.

"I can't face going to see him at the moment. This has really upset me because It was said to me that he won't be coming out of there except feet first."

She said she believed in her son's innocence and insisted that he should have walked free from court.

Earlier this week, Gunning's rented house in Lodden Avenue, Berinsfield, was attacked and two garages where he kept property were also smashed up.

A woman neighbour, who refused to be named, said: "It was a revenge attack to let others know how we feel about sex offenders and perverts."

Nobody from Bullingdon Prison, near Bicester, was available for comment.

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