An 81-year-old child abuser who escaped justice by fleeing to Thailand in 1997 ahead of his trial has today been jailed for 46 years for a catalogue of horrific sex offences against 24 boys in his care from the late 60s to the mid-90s.
Richard Burrows carried out the earliest attacks while working as a housemaster at Danesford Approved School in Cheshire. He also abused boys through his involvement in the scouting community and radio clubs, where young boys were keen to learn about radios and obtain their badges. The victims were all aged between 10 and 15.
Burrows accepted he was a paedophile but denied committing the most serious offences.
In March, a jury at Chester Crown Court found him guilty of 54 offences, including four counts of “buggery” which, if the attacks had happened today, would have been charged as rape. Before the start of his trial in January, Burrows pleaded guilty to 43 counts, including five counts of having indecent images of children, and four counts related to having passports under a false name.
His guilty pleas included possessing 655 indecent photos of boys in magazines, which were found sewn into the lining of a tweed coat during a police search in 1997. Seventy-five photos were classed as being in the most serious category.
Four of the 24 victims had died and did not see Burrows finally face justice. The Crown Prosecution Service relied on the accounts they gave to the police in the 1990s or later to build the case against him. Some of these were provided through video recordings played to the jury. Many of the surviving victims wanted to face Burrows in court, but for others, the CPS arranged for them to give evidence remotely, including from their home, via video link. One victim gave evidence from his hospital bed.
Samantha Thompson from the Crown Prosecution Service said, “I’m pleased that many of Richard Burrows’s victims were in court today to see their abuser get justice. He will very likely never leave prison. Burrows is an unrepentant paedophile who used his position of trust to sexually abuse boys over three decades. When faced with a trial and public exposure, he fled to Thailand.
“His victims suffered horrendous abuse made worse by many of them not being able to tell anyone for fear that they would not be believed. This was borne out in some cases, where boys did speak up but were dismissed, and Burrows was able to move on.
“But this case shows that neither the police nor the CPS are deterred by the passage of time, and we will do all we can to bring sex offenders to justice. There is more support available for victims than ever before, and I encourage anyone who has ever been abused to go to the police.”
Burrows was arrested a week before his 80th birthday when he arrived at Heathrow Airport in March last year. In 1997, he was charged with a number of child sex offences but fled to Thailand ahead of a court hearing in December that year. He left the UK after getting a passport issued under a false name.
The earliest offence for which Richard Burrows was convicted happened in March 1966, and the last sex attack was in September 1996.
There was no forensic evidence, such as DNA left on clothes. The bulk of the evidence against Burrows came from the testimony of his victims, which showed a pattern of behaviour and was sometimes supported by other children, now adults, who they had confided in or who had seen the victims being upset after an attack.
The sex offences were prosecuted under the Sex Offences Act 1956 because they occurred before the law was updated in 2003.
