A judge refused to jail a convicted paedophile for another offence and ordered him to pay his latest victim, a six-year-old girl, enough money to buy a new bicycle to cheer herself up.
Relatives reacted angrily as Judge Julian Hall imposed a suspended sentence on Eric Cole, 71, who had previously been imprisoned for abusing a 12-year-old child.
Hate messages and a threat of a vigilante attack on Cole were posted on a local newspaper website which reported the judge’s remarks yesterday.
The judge told Cole to pay the girl £250 compensation, saying: “If it buys her a nice new bicycle, that’s the sort of thing that might cheer her up.” He added: “In criminal terms, what you did was quite mild but the effects were serious.”
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