One of the victims of a child sex offender has bravely stood up in court to tell her attacker what devastating impact his ‘disgusting crimes’ have had on her life.

‘Sick’ Antony Hartshorn was a teenager when he began indecently assaulting an eight-year-old girl in Ellesmere Port in the late 1980s and into the early 1990s.

She was left feeling ‘damaged and worthless’ due to the abuse she suffered at his hands.

Now 42, Hartshorn, of Wilkinson Street in Ellesmere Port, was handed a four-year prison sentence at Chester Crown Court on Monday, January 30.

Historical offences

His sex offences only came to light in December 2015 – almost 30 years later – when the second of his two victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, reported him to the police.

He was subsequently charged with seven counts of indecent assault on a female under the age of 14 and one count of gross indecency with a child, all of which he pleaded guilty to.

The court heard that Hartshorn was aged between 13 and 15 when the offences occurred.

He made his female victim touch his penis, performed sex acts on her and simulated sexual intercourse with her, while his male victim was just six or seven-years-old when Hartshorn assaulted him in a shed.

'Sickness'

Reading an impact statement aloud to the court, the female victim spoke of Hartshorn’s ‘selfish, destructive sickness’ and revealed she has suffered anxiety and depression well into her adulthood.

“I hated the skin I was in because of what he did to me,” she said.

“I found it difficult being outside and around people – I thought that everybody could see that I was damaged and worthless.

“When I was 18 I moved in with a man from work who treated me horribly but I thought that was what I deserved.”

The male victim turned to drugs in an attempt to ‘bury the memories’, he revealed in a statement which prosecuting barrister Oliver King read aloud.

He also described how he felt his childhood had ‘been taken away’.

Remorse

Brian Treadwell, defending, said his client is ‘remorseful’ and accepts that what he did was wrong, as demonstrated by his guilty pleas which were submitted at the earliest opportunity.

He added that Hartshorn’s only other conviction was for benefit fraud more than 20 years ago and that he has been assessed as being of ‘low risk’ of reoffending.

Sentencing Harthsorn, His Honour Judge Simon Berkson said: “When you were a young teenager you behaved in an appalling way to two young children.

“You were young at the time but they were much younger and only children.

“These were disgusting crimes which have had a lasting effect.

“You have blighted the lives of two people.

“Had you been tried for these offences today you would receive sentences running into double figures but that is not possible bearing in mind your age at the time and their ages at the time and the sentencing guidelines then.”

Hartshorn will serve two years of his four-year sentence in prison and the remaining two on license.