Toothill child rapist gets 19 years in jail

Jailing John Whelan at Swindon Crown Court on Monday, Judge Jason Taylor QC told him: “Your grooming and manipulation was nothing more than a selfish and perverted desire to prioritise your sexual gratification over their welfare.”

Recent changes to the law mean that the 64-year-old will spend at least two thirds of that 19 year sentence behind bars. Once he is released he must spend a further two years on licence.

Whelan was found guilty earlier this month of indecent assault, gross indecency with a child and rape. The offences were committed between the mid-1990s and 2000s against two girls, both of whom were under 11 when the abuse began.

His younger victim, who was raped by Whelan after being made to perform sex acts on him while they played games in his “man cave”, told the court on Monday that she had felt “totally and utterly powerless”.

She said: “I have carried around the weight of the world on my shoulders for most of my life.”

The older woman said Whelan had stolen her childhood and the person she could have been.

Mitigating, Whelan’s barrister Clare Evans said her client had been a “hardworking family man who’s done everything he can to support his family”.

John Whelan's custody shot Picture: WILTSHIRE POLICE

During the trial, jurors heard how Whelan turned his abuse of the children into games, including instructing one seven-year-old girl to play hide and seek with his private parts after covering his genitals with a blanket.

The abuse was perpetrated from the mid-90s to mid-2000s.

The older girl claimed Whelan had occasionally babysat her while her mother was out at work – and she had also been looked after at his family home.

Jurors were told he had arrived to babysit her at her home with what he called “special films” – pornography that he would make her watch while she sat on his lap. He was said to have molested her; touching her sexually and getting her to touch him.

The touching continued at his own home, as they played video games in his “man cave”, although he would not expose himself at the house. Opening the case to the jury last week, prosecutor David Scutt said: “She said this: ‘It was our secret, it was our little game’ and that, no doubt was what he was telling her as that young girl.”

As she got older she had refused to take part in the “games”, she claimed. When her mum switched work shifts the girl no longer needed to be babysat by the man. On the occasions she went around to his house she stayed close to her mum, Mr Scutt said.

The older girl said she had noticed Whelan taking an interest in another younger girl. They would both be called upstairs to watch TV in his bedroom. On occasion he would be wearing a towel, she claimed.

The younger girl claimed Whelan had begun sexually abusing her when she was around seven. She said the man had shown her pornographic playing cards and websites.

He had been grooming her, Mr Scutt said. “He was getting her to look at it, this is to say the stuff on the computer, and what was described as his game; it was made into play for this young child. He would get her to look at videos, she said, and he told her what he wanted her to do.”

The girl claimed she had been made to touch him sexually and perform oral sex on him. On one occasion he raped her, she said. “[He said] he was going to make her happy like the ladies in the videos,” Mr Scutt said.

One victim said she had experienced urinary problems during her childhood. During Whelan’s sentencing hearing, the judge suggested that could be the result of a sexually transmitted infection.

The abuse was reported to police in early 2019. In December the previous year, the younger woman had told her mother and father she had been raped by Whelan. Her brother was instrumental in persuading her to go to the police, jurors heard. The woman had told her then partner – later her husband – about the abuse.

The older woman came forward after being told by her mother that the younger complainant had gone to the police.

Interviewed by police last year, Whelan denied sexually assaulting the girls. He said the pornographic cards belonged to his late father.

Sentencing Whelan, Judge Taylor said: “You forced [your victims] to live with this shameful secret for years, knowing as they did that if they ever came forward it would go nuclear.

“It took tremendous courage for them to come forward but at last they feel back in control for the first time for 20 and 15 years respectively.”

The judge commented that Whelan, formerly of Stamford Close, Toothill, but appearing in court via video link from Bristol prison, had been shaking his head as he summarised the evidence against him.