A former boarding school housemaster and scout leader has been found guilty of 97 offences, including dozens of historical child sexual abuse offences.
Richard Burrows spent 27 years on the run, living in what he described as “paradise”, after fleeing the UK when he was due to appear in court in 1997.
He was arrested at Heathrow Airport on his return from Thailand on the eve of his 80th birthday last March.
Burrows, who lived in the southern Thailand province of Phuket, told family he had come back to face his accusers and his maker – police say the truth was that he simply had run out of money.
He had previously admitted dozens of offences dating from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s.
The jury at Chester Crown Court heard that Burrows systematically abused boys with whom he came into contact.
Burrows had admitted 43 offences – and denied 54 others, which jurors convicted him of on Monday.
Mark Connor KC said: “He obtained positions of trust and responsibility which he breached to satisfy himself sexually with the youngsters.”
Burrows had worked as a housemaster at a school for troubled teenagers in Cheshire in the 1960s. He was later involved with the scouts and amateur radio clubs in the Midlands.
Victim describes ‘despicable, evil human being’
James Harvey was 13 or 14 when he was befriended by Burrows through his involvement with the sea scouts. Burrows admitted indecently assaulting James in a caravan after visiting an RAF show.
James has waived his right to anonymity as a victim of a sexual offence.
He told Sky News: “The reason I’m doing this is to at least put a face to the real children who from the age of 10, 12, 13, put their trust in this man. I want his name to be trashed in the world for everybody that ever knew him and thought that he was okay.
“I think he’s pathetic in the true sense of the word. His impulses and emotions have driven everything that he’s done probably throughout the whole of his life and have left him looking like a shambling, despicable, evil human being that could casually over 60 years do this to children and still wake up in the morning and find a way of justifying it.
“I think he’s pathetic, I think he’s weak. There is nothing about this man that deserves anything other than loathing.”
Accusers came forward after Crimewatch appeal
During his trial, Burrows admitted being a paedophile but denied the more serious allegations, describing them as “degrading and disgusting”.
The court heard that Burrows believed his actions had done no harm to the children.
As he planned his return to the UK last year, he told his brother that “not all paedophiles are the same”.
“I just think that’s a disgusting comment to make,” detective inspector Eli Atkinson of Cheshire Police told Sky News.
“What we see when we talk to the victims is that it absolutely did do harm. For the vast majority of them, that is their first sexual experience at the age of nine, ten, eleven, twelve, that affects a person for the rest of their life.”
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Burrows, who is originally from Sutton Coldfield, was first arrested in April 1997 and charged with child sexual offences. When he failed to appear at Chester Crown Court that December, a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Over the years, police made numerous televised appeals for help to track down Burrows on the BBC’s Crimewatch programme. It prompted more accusers to come forward.
But Burrows had left the UK. He obtained a passport using the name Peter Leslie Smith having cloned the identity of an unwell acquaintance.
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During a routine reappraisal of the case, police used facial recognition software to confirm that “Smith” was in fact Burrows, and that he was living openly in Thailand.
When they became aware of his plans to return to the UK, police allowed Burrows to travel on his fake passport so he could be arrested as he touched down.
Cheshire Police say they are not able to say whether Burrows might have offended during his time living abroad.
DI Atkinson said it is possible there are other victims who have not come forward.
“There may well be. There’s a lot of reasons why people have really difficult decisions to make as to whether they come forward in cases like this.
“It would not surprise me if, given the length of time that he offended over and the level of offending, if there were more people out there who were victims of him.”
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James Harvey has questions over why Burrows was granted bail in 1997. He also wonders whether he could have done more to report him earlier.
“People listening to me now might think ‘Oh, I’d behave differently’ but we had no language, no framework, no understanding, no imagination that this same person had done to us, would go on and do something so much worse to somebody else.
“It is almost impossible for me to sit here and say I wish I had done that. There was no way that I could, literally. We lived in this kind of unbelievable ignorance and innocence that there were predators like this living in every single one of our institutions.”
Burrows has now been convicted. Some of his accusers died before seeing him finally face justice.
