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A notorious paedophile has been found guilty of dozens of historical child sexual abuse offences after spending years on the run in a place he described as ‘paradise’.
Richard Burrows, a former Scout leader and housemaster, was found guilty of 97 offences dating from the 1960s to the 1990s.
His dreadful crimes led to a conviction at Chester Crown Court today after he admitted to 47 offences. A jury also found him guilty of 54 others.
The convictions come around one year after Burrows was arrested on the eve of his 80th birthday at Heathrow Airport as he returned to the UK from Thailand.
As he planned his return, he told his brother: ‘Not all paedophiles are the same’. Following his arrest, he told police he had been living in ‘paradise’.
He was first arrested in April 1997. When police searched his house in Birmingham, they found magazines of adolescent and pre-pubescent boys engaged in sexual activity stitched into the inside of one of his jackets.
He was charged that year and was due to appear at Chester Crown Court in December 1997, but he failed to attend.
A warrant was issued for his arrest and it was subsequently discovered he had fled the country under the alias ‘Peter Leslie Smith’. Burrows had cloned the identification of an acquaintance and successfully obtained a passport.
Burrows’ arrest at Heathrow last year came when police learned of his plans to return to the UK and travel on his fake passport in order to be arrested.
A reappraisal of the case had confirmed ‘Smith’ was in fact Burrows through facial recognition software.
Opening the case for the prosecution, Mark Connor said Burrows systematically abused boys by obtaining ‘positions of trust and responsibility’ which he then breached to ‘satisfy himself sexually with the youngsters’.
Burrows denied penetrative sexual activity at any point and abusing other youngsters. He drew a distinction between penetration and sexual touching and appeared to suggest it was justified and he did no harm.
Burrows had worked as a Scout leader, in amateur radio clubs following work as a housemaster at a school for troubled boys in Cheshire during the 1960s.
It is believed a number of Burrows’ victims have never come forward. Some have died without ever receiving justice.
Survivor James Harvey, who waived his right to anonymity as a sexual offence victim, told Sky News: ‘I want his name to be trashed in the world for everybody that ever knew him and thought that he was okay.’
He said he thinks Burrows, originally from Sutton Coldfield, is ‘pathetic’ and that his actions had left him ‘looking like a shambling, despicable, evil human being’.
Burrows admitted assaulting Mr Harvey in a caravan after attending and RAF show. Burrows had befriended the boy, who was 13 or 14 at the time, through his involvement in the Sea Scouts.
Mr Harvey also questioned why Burrows was granted bail after his first arrest in 1997.
He said: ‘We had no language, no framework, no understanding, no imagination that this same person had done to us, would go on and do something so much worse to somebody else.’
He added that there was an ‘unbelievable ignorance’ towards sexual predators hiding in ‘every single one of our institutions’.
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