Paedophile who made schoolgirl victim give evidence is put away
Wednesday 26th January 2011, 2:30PM GMT.
Kenneth Holberry, right, arrives for his trial with Advocate Alan Merrien. (Picture by Steve Sarre, 1020126)
A LYING paedophile who forced his young victim to give evidence against him has been jailed by the Royal Court.
Kenneth Holberry, 55, was sent down for four-and-a-half years. It was his second offence.
Holberry was convicted in December when the jurats unanimously found him guilty.
Sentencing, Judge Russell Finch said Holberry’s not guilty plea to an offence he had committed forced the 11-year-old victim to give evidence via a live video link, which must have been an ordeal.
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Disgusting, yet another one crawls from out of the woodwork, how many more of them are there!!!? Makes me phyiscally sick, hope he gets battered whilst inside!
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One answer is,”Chemical Castration”. This can be done over a period of months. I know, because it has been done to me for Medical reasons ( I have advanced Prostate Cancer.) I now have no sexual feelings whatsoever.So I know it works !
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Why has he only been given four an a half years for a second offence? The first offence should have seen him put away for the rest of his life, the filthy pervert.
Sorry to hear about the cancer A.J but I think you have made a stellar point there. He can’t be trusted to keep his urges in check, so alter those feelings before releasing him out to attack another poor child.
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Two Paedophiles jailed in less than a week……..its becoming an epidemic.
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How do people like Adv. Merrien sleep at night? Trying to get a paedo released on the basis of “a possibility that DNA samples might have been contaminated”.
Shameful.
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In reading the article one notes that this is the second time he has been caught. In 1990 he got a £200 fine and a couple of months….how on earth can this be justice? I wonder how the first victim felt when he got this ridiculous sentence. How is this possible?????????
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Merry’Un
Adv Merrien Im sure would rather not have had to sit listening to this sad excuse of a low life.
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HIs sentence is a disgrace and a complete insult to the victim. This is NOT justice!!!!!!
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First offence was £200 plus suspended sentence he never went to prison. This time he got 4 and half years, two years once out he has to keep to the court rules otherwise if he goes against these rules he has an additional 2 years imprisionment. As you say not long enough but i understand the judge can only give a max of 5 years.
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Everyone is entitled to a defence – it is not the job of the Advocate to give a verdict and people are still presumed innocent until proved guilty; that is the only fair way other than mob rule.
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Welcome to Guernsey 2011
More good news for the exodus,is the island riddled with sexual offenders ?
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@Merry ‘Un
Quite right. How dare anyone try to defend themselves in court! Why do we even let criminals have a trial? – I mean, they wouldn’t be up in court if they were innocent would they ? Just let the police round up all the guilty people ( because they always know and never get it wrong ) and sling them straight in jail. Save all that time and money we waste on the justice system every day … and spend it instead on the far more important punishment ….
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4 half years…pfft makes you sick! he gets a short time..and his victim serves a life sentance
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So his advocate states that he Holberry has lost everything. His marriage, his son, his house, his employment. Are we the public supposed to feel sorry for him. This guy will do it again, he has already proved that. After he was last convicted in 1990 it didn’t stop him did it. What i can’t understand is how if he was convicted of it in 1990 how was he allowed to have access to his young child. Surely people like this should be kept well away from children. I hope that he and that other perverted piece of junk get what they deserve whilst they are serving their time. It makes me so angry that they don’t see any harm in what they are doing to these poor innocent children.
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I can’t quite believe it too! A family member was sexually mollested in the early 90′s and it still makes me sick that the man got away with it.
Finally people are going to court for this and being sentenced but the sentences are just not long enough!
Sorry to hear of your illness AJ, unfortunately I think for some of these paedo’s it’s not always about the sexual side it can be control etc and a lot of that comes from thought patterns… but agree chemical castration would be a good start!
My preference bring back hanging! Criminals who kill others or ruin a childs life should be hung.
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makes me sick ppl sarve less for manslater guernsey people need to know who we are living by i wont let my kids play outside as i really dont know who we are living by an i am not taking that chance my kids lifes mean everything to me and i will not have anyone hurt them like i have done in the past when i was raped
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i agree with comments, holberry should not be allowed back into our society, he gets a cushy few years the child gets a life sentence.
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Adv. Merrien was only doing his Job! It must be so hard for the Adv’s that have to defend these types of people.
I was a victim of my stepfather, It got taken to court, which is very rare and once having gone through that whole ordeal when I was just 12! He only got sentenced to 10 months and only served 7!!! (his Adv knew he was guilty but had to defend him anyway, as it was his Job)
He has now gone back to the UK as a free man.(Not on any Sex register) He could be anywhere now! living with another family with children doing exactly the same thing but the child is to scared to speak….
These people should be locked up for life and tortured!!
There sentences will never change and the victims will never get the right justice!!
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The reason recent revelations about Gsy sex offenders has come as a shock to many is that for years it had been swept under the carpet. Thank goodness for the new Children Law which finally seems to be making some progress in making our population better informed on child protection. I work with kids regularly and have had a fair amount of training on the matter; you’d be shocked at the number of people who work with kids I have heard say ‘oh but it doesn’t happen in Gsy’. Statistically 1 in 8 children are abused in some way HERE IN GUERNSEY. This is unacceptable but unless people speak up when they see something that concerns them nothing will change.
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Gsy Girl
The advocate does have a choice whether to represent people such as this, it’s not forced upon them.
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Phil – while each individual Advocate can refuse to act on a matter, someone has to defend him and the Bar would ensure that an Advocate did so. All Advocates believe in the importance of the judicial system and the right for every person (no matter what their crime) to be defended. If someone is undefended then it undermines the validity of any conviction. It is not a question of supporting the defendant or taking their side in a moral or personal sense, but is a matter of ensuring that the legal process, and their conviction, stands up to scrutiny.
Just as any doctor would try to save his life if he was seriously injured.
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Phil,
If this is the case, then like someone said in an earlier post, everybody should get the right to a defence!!
As that not everybody that goes to court is guilty.
What I meant by this is the fact that his advocate stood there and defended him and after he got sentenced the Adv said to my family ” the right decision was made” so even though they may not believe their clients deep down they still have to do their job!!
Anyway It’s not the Advocates to blame it’s the Sick twisted people that do the abuse and the laws that allow them to get away with it!!!
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What a difference 20 years makes? £200 in 1990 and 4.5 years in 2011. Finally Guernsey taking these crimes seriously.
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CJG, there seems to be “more crawling out of the woodwork”since the states voted for abnormal sex with children last year !!!
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GSYGIRL, I’m sorry to hear what you went through and can only imagine how hard it must’ve been and still is. I’m not directing this at you by the way, but I’m a mother of 2 little girls and would NEVER let another man other than their father sleep under the same roof as us. I’m sure, everybody is entitled to new relationships but as a mother I would not trust any man at all. Too many women let men into their lives without knowing who they are or what they’re capable of.
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@normal
Your comment is beneath contempt but out of interest:-
How do you explain the fact that the crimes committed by the two (heterosexual?) paedophiles sentenced this month were committed well before the States vote to equalise the age of consent?
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normal – Eh?? What are you on about please?
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Obviously no access to a fair trial or due process is a sensible idea, i mean guilty until proved inoccent works does it?
Lets just hope that I don’t accuse you of raping my kids, then your screwed!
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CJG
That statement can’t get much more incorrect!!
Do you really think when my mother brought that man into are household, got married, had a child with him and spent 7 years with him. Expected him to do such a dreadful thing!!
It doesn’t make a difference that is wasn’t our biological father that was living with us, most cases you hear of it’s a father, uncle or close family friend.
These people don’t walk around with a sign around thier necks saying “watch out i’m a Paedo”.
My little sister was only 2 years old at the time, who knows if he had done the same to her. but I know that my mother and myself did our best to get this man as far away from her as possible!! She still has to be told that her DAD is a convicted Paedophile!!!
So maybe you should keep your children locked up in a room in your house unless your so sure who you can trust!!!
My mother will never get over the feeling of guilt that she brought that man into our household, but she is not to blame. How was she to know!!!
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hes been doing it for years he raped me in 1983 i kept quiet maybe i should have told someone but i was scared he offered me a lift home and took me to a quiet spot and said if i didnt let him i would have to walk home he was cleaning public toilets at the time who else got abused ????????
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This is madness! and a sentence Like this would be laughed at in Scotland!
A first charge of £200? and then to be allowed the freedom to then sexually abuse children, which could have easily been our own.
To commit this crime again clearly shows this man has an addiction Like drug addict or an alcoholic and need to get his fix. He clearly has no concern for the wellbeing of children, which is sad considering he has children himself.
I hope the new Childrens Law will make a difference on this Island and make people aware. It doesn’t matter WHO you are in society! Or WHERE you come from, a child abuser could be anyone. It’s the unknown cases of child abuse that could be going on right now, that breaks my heart!!!! These people clearly need to be removed from society!
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guernsey ppl need to know who is on thier island as we dont know who is around i was rape at 13 and the guy got sent off island i now have 2 daughters and i wont let anyone i dont know near them and they cant even play on the est we live on. i know my mate was rape when she was little and the guy drive around like nothing happen how can this work?
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Obviously Guernsey thinks that raping children is just a minor crime.
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I hope this is the start of our States finally taking these matters seriously.
The damage that can be done by abusers is severe and life-changing, as I’m sure Gsygirl and Sally above can testify.
I was ‘lucky’ enough to be only physically molested in a minor way as a young child, but the guilt and shame affected my behaviour from that point on to adulthood, spoiling my relations with my own family.
For a short while I tried to replicate what happened to me with other children – it’s like a switch that gets flicked on, sexualising the child and making it very likely to pass on abuse like a virus. It’s why I’d – sadly – never foster over here. Not because I might abuse children myself (I realised the ‘wrong’ of what I was doing very swiftly), but because SO many children are abused over here and I have young children of my own.
A close relative of mine fostered local children for many years and became very disillusioned. So many children showed clear signs of (or were acknowledged to have suffered from) sexual abuse, but the perpetrators were never brought to justice.
A friend of mine worked for the Children Board a number of years ago and claims that incidents were often not properly investigated and that a member of staff was found to be involved in abuse. This sounds very plausible when you consider that we have no register of sex offenders.
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