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A man who held a young girl captive in his ‘torture den’ and sexually abused her has been jailed for 22 years.

Pervert David Challenor subjected the 10-year-old girl to horrific sexual abuse and even gave her electric shocks.

He also took photographs of the youngster being tortured and abused to help him relive the sick ordeal he had put her through.

When he was arrested, Challenor accused the girl of being a liar and a fantasist – but the police found the gruesome attic kitted out just as she had described, a jury has heard.

Despite that, he pleaded not guilty to charges including false imprisonment, rape, gross indecency, sexual assault, indecent assault and assault causing her actual bodily harm.

(Image: Paul Beard)

Challenor, 50, of Charterhouse Road, Lower Stoke, also denied taking indecent images of her, making indecent images of children by downloading them, and possessing prohibited images.

But after almost nine hours at the end of an 11-day trial, the jury at Warwick Crown Court found him guilty of all but one of the charges of taking indecent images by unanimous verdicts.

Jailing him for 22 years, Recorder Nicholas Syfret QC also found him to be "an offender of particular concern".

That means that instead of automatically being released after serving half of his sentence, Parole Board will decide whether he will be freed at that stage.

And he may end up serving longer than that or even the whole 22 years before being released, after which he will be on licence for an additional 12 months.

The horrific crimes

Prosecutor Andrew Wallace said that most of the charges related to the ordeal of one girl.

“The defendant will call her a fantasist and a liar about the allegations, but she made them before the police went to the defendant’s house and made a search," he said.

The offences came to light after the girl confided in someone about an incident, which was reported to police who interviewed her towards the end of 2015.

Mr Wallace said Challenor had "various sexual fetishes and fantasies" including dressing up as a small girl himself in onesies and adult-sized baby dresses and nappies.

(Image: Paul Beard)

Pretending to be a little girl called Lucy, when the girl was at his home he took her into the attic where he asked her "to do things to him" before he assaulted her.

Challenor also tied her up and gave her electric shocks, before taking pictures of her.

After leaving, she was initially too frightened to tell anyone what he had done, but eventually did so.

When he was arrested, Challenor denied the offences and claimed the girl was "a fantasist".

However, officers found the attic in which the girl had been abused and it was as she had described.

Indecent images

In addition, indecent images were found on a memory card in a digital camera, including some of that girl, which Challenor denied being responsible for taking.

And on another device were indecent images of children which had been downloaded from the internet.

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Verdicts

After the jury returned its verdicts, Mr Wallace read out an impact statement in which Challenor’s victim said she had been left traumatised by her ordeal.

Robert Sandford, defending, conceded: “She is damaged, I make no issue about that.”

He said Challenor, who has medical issues, has been the full-time carer for his wife, who attended court in a wheelchair and was now unlikely to be able to remain in their home.

Challenor was jailed for 19 years for the offences against the girl, with a consecutive three-year term for the images, and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

Recorder Syfret told him: “It is hard to comprehend how you could behave with such depravity. The harm done by you to her is hard to overestimate.”

What did the NSPCC say?

An NSPCC spokesman said: “Challenor’s abuse of this young girl was nothing short of evil, and will have caused unimaginable trauma that can take a lifetime to come to terms with.

“But once again, a brave survivor of child sexual abuse has shown that by speaking out, they can help bring a predator to justice.”

Anyone concerned about a child can contact the NSPCC Helpline in confidence on 0808 800 5000.

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