20/05/2013

Retired Priest Found Guilty Of Sex Abuse

A retired Anglican priest has been found guilty of sexual abuse.

Canon Gordon Rideout, who is 74, was found guilty at Lewes Crown Court of abusing children in the 1960s and 70s, the BBC has said.

He has been convicted of 36 separate sex offences against 16 different children.

Rideout, from Polegate, had denied 34 indecent assaults and two attempted rapes, but while he was found guilty on a number of charges, he was acquitted of one charge of indecent assault against a five-year-old child.

The attacks took place between 1962 and 1973 in Hampshire and Sussex, but most were carried out at Ifield Hall children's home in Crawley, when Rideout was an assistant curate at St Mary's Church in Crawley. He was the assistant curate from September 1962 to September 1965. During that time he regularly visited the Barnardo's children's home, Ifield Hall, which has since been demolished.

The majority of the offences took place there, although he was also convicted of four charges of indecent assault on two girls at the Middle Wallop army base, where he was a padre.

(JP/MH)


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