Man Jailed For Sexually Abusing Young Girls

A man who repeatedly abused three young girls over a six-year-period, has been jailed for seven years.

Peter Ogden, 55, of Rochdale, was convicted of 10 counts of historic sexual abuse following a trial and was sentenced on Thursday to seven years at Manchester Crown Court Crown Square.

Ogden abused the girls over a six-year period between 1990 and 1996, when all three were under 13-years-old.

The landscape gardener was told by Judge Elliot Knopf he had caused “stress, anxiety, shame, confusion, hurt and humiliation” to the victims by forcing them to go through the ordeal of a trial.

Ogden's first victim was aged just eight-years-old when the abuse started in 1990.

He befriended his second victim in 1994, when she was nine or 10-years-old, by offering her chewing gum in return for a kiss. This escalated over the following year into sexual abuse but the victim felt too scared to speak out. The third victim was aged just seven or eight-years-old in 1995 or 1996.

Detective Sergeant Mike Armstrong-Porter, from the Child Protection Unit at Rochdale, said: "Over a sustained period of time, Ogden abused the trust these young girls and their families put in him and sexually assaulted them.

"Frequently he would disguise his abuse as a 'game'.

"He made his victims feel as if they had no choice but to endure his abuse. They were too young and too scared to speak out, and although his actions made them feel physically sick, they felt as if they had to put up with it. No-one should ever be made to feel like that and the fact they did makes Ogden's actions absolutely unforgivable.

"I am glad he is now behind bars where he cannot hurt anyone else."

(JM/BMcC)