No Justice

One of the things that really, truly infuriates me is the incredible leniency offered by the courts to paedophiles. Again and again we hear of crimes committed by those already convicted who were released early from already light sentences. Here's another example of a predator being given little more than a slap on the wrist.

A paedophile who molested a 14-year-girl after meeting her on the internet has been sentenced to 14 months in jail.

Gareth Crowther, 37, of Nether Langwith, Nottinghamshire, groomed the teenager in a chat room, Gloucester Crown Court heard.

Crowther pleaded guilty to one charge of grooming and another charge of sexual activity with a child in 2005.

The judge banned him from working with children in the future.

What the BBC article doesn't mention is that he was convicted back in January- and yet he went right back to work driving a school bus while awaiting sentencing.

NOTTS Police has come under fire after it allowed a convicted paedophile to carry on working as a school bus driver in Worksop... the 37-year-old pervert was allowed to return to his job as a school bus driver with Johnson Bros Tours after he was freed while awaiting sentence.

This week the bus firm, along with Notts County Council, said they had no idea Crowther was a convicted paedophile.

"Our client is surprised and alarmed that it was not notified by either the police or Crown Prosecution Service of a charge and then conviction of a person in their employment," said a solicitor representing Johnson's, of Hodthorpe.

So not only is a convicted paedophile allowed to go free for weeks between conviction and sentencing but the police fail to inform his employers of the decision and all the while they must have known that his job was as a school bus driver. The Sun seems to have been instrumental in exposing him.

He is the THIRD paedophile school bus driver exposed by The Sun in two months.

A judge put him on the sex offenders’ register last month at Gloucester Crown Court and bailed him to be sentenced next Monday.

But bus colleagues were horrified when he turned up to work — boasting he was cleared.

One said: “It’s an ideal situation for a predator grooming children.

“He will joke about how good-looking the schoolgirls are, and you can see he means it.”

The Sun watched last week as kids from two schools clambered on to Crowther’s bus.

What's wrong with our judicial system that people who prey on children are treated like this? The question now of course is just how much of that 14 month sentence he will actually serve.