A BROTHER and sister told no-one about their childhood sex abuse ordeal at the hands of a babysitter for more than 30 years, a court heard last Friday.

The pair were asked to play "doctors and nurses" with Robert Stansfield - who used the game to involve them in sex acts and indecently touch them, Warrington Crown Court was told.

More than two decades later the brother watched a television programme about sex abuse, discussed the matter with his sister and they contacted police.

Detectives arrested Stansfield, now 40, of Shropshire Close, Woolston, and he immediately confessed. At the time of the offences he himself was subjected to sexual abuse by other men, the court was told.

Stansfield admitted four offences of indecency and three charges of indecent assault involving the brother. He also admitted three offences of indecency and indecently assaulting the sister three times.

Placing him on probation for two years, Judge Stephen Clarke said sentencing was "difficult" because the defendent himself had been the victim of sexual abuse around the time when the offences took place.

He told Stansfield that he had been in a position of trust, and that his behaviour had been a blight on the lives of the victims.

But he added: "The only proper way forward in this case, having regard to the passage of time, is to deal with you by way of a community penalty."

Stansfield was also ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register and keep police informed about his whereabouts for the next five years.

Meirion Lewis Jones, prosecuting, said the offences occurred between 1973 and 1975, when the brother was aged about nine and his sister was around seven, at their Warrington home.

The abuse ended after Stansfield took the brother to Marbury Mere, near Northwich, and committed an indecent act. But the brother and sister were too afraid to tell adults about what was happening at the time.

Stephen Knapp, defending, said: "He wants to put this episode permanently behind him. He never received professional help after his own abuse."

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