Hi °C | Lo °C Convicted paedophile Michael Charles Stevens, already serving 14 years for sexually abusing two primary schoolgirls, has been convicted of abusing two teenage secondary schoolgirls.
It took the jury of eight men and four women three-and-a-half hours over two days to convict the 56-year-old wheelchair-using former soldier and father of two from Bleerick Drive in Antrim.
The Antrim Crown Court jury rejected his claims that it had been him who was the real victim of abuse, not the teenage girls.
During his initial trial at Craigavon Crown Court, where he was jailed in March on four charges of gross indecency and 13 of indecent assault, Stevens claimed one of his victims had pushed his hand inside her pyjamas and even grabbed his private parts against his will.
In his current trial he made similar claims, alleging the teenage girls simulated lesbian sex in front of him, while on another occasion he had to dive under a duvet cover when one girl pulled the pyjama bottoms off her friend.
It had been the prosecution case that far from being a victim, Stevens, placed again on the Sex Offenders Register, plied the young schoolgirls with drink and money before sexually abusing them.
One girl, now aged 17, claimed that Stevens even gave her a mobile phone and that while she had initially thought of him as a “father”, she was now “just disgusted in him”.
The teenager said at times when indecently assaulting her “his face was dribbling with sweat and it was disgusting”, and that he would tell her: “you be nice to me and I’ll be nice to you”.
Prosecution lawyer Derval McGuigan said Stevens befriended the two teenagers and allowed them to use his flat and laptop computer.
Judge Gemma Loughran was also told that Stevens would give them bottles of WKD drink and money and on occasions invited them to watch porn, which they declined.
Stevens has been remanded back into custody to await sentence on these second set of sex abuse charges involving one of gross indecency and four of indecent assault.
However, it is unclear if he will face having his original sentence of 14 years added to or whether any new term will be made to run concurrently alongside that sentence.
