Prison for former shop keeper over sex abuse charges
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
CONVICTED sex offender, Ronnie Smyth has been sentenced for three and half years and ordered to sign the sex offenders register for life. He pleaded guilty to a total of seven charges of indecent assault and one of committing an act of gross indecency with a child on dates between October 1997 and October 1999.
Smyth was a popular shopkeeper in the town was the subject of a petrol and paint bomb attack earlier this month. Belfast Crown Court Judge Philip Babington said he had "manipulated the victim by use of threats" and had shown "little victim insight" regarding the trauma he put the girl through.
The court heard details of how the abuse occurred after the girl began helping out in the shop. Details of the incidents were heard by the court. Prosecuting lawyer Andrew Crawford said Smyth "kept staring at her, which frightened her and she did not know what to do. He gave her sweets and told her not to tell anyone" The court heard the girl was not going to go back to the shop but he threatened if she didn't "he would tell her mother".
Mr Crawford said the girl could remember there was CCTV covering the shop but that when her boss would take her to the storeroom to abuse her, he would use the monitor in there to keep an eye out for customers coming in.
The lawyer said the abuse was "repeated on a large number of occasions, approximately 100 times" over the two years or so it lasted and that on five or six occasions, she was forced to touch him.
Defence QC Ken McMahon said it was significant that Smyth had reached 68 years of age with no other offences on his record.
