Adrian Gartshore-Taylor sexually abused a 10-year-old boy multiple times over weeks and months in 2002 at Great Birchwood Country Park and Campsite at Warton, near Lytham.
The 66-year-old, who was a car boot salesman living in a caravan on the site, enticed the boy – who cannot be identified due to legal reasons – to work for him and help him sell his goods.
On one occasion he convinced the boy’s father to let him stay overnight at his caravan so that they could start setting up the car boot stall early in the morning.
Preston Crown Court heard how this was simply a ploy for Adrian Gartshore-Taylor to groom the boy, with the child being abused on multiple occasions in the caravan between January 1 and November 29, 2002.
He would show the child how to play computer games on his laptop, during which he would start sexually assaulting him. This happened on multiple occasions.
Adrian Gartshore-Taylor bought the boy the latest mobile phone and trainers, as well as taking him on trips to the cinema, as a way to buy his loyalty.
The boy’s mum became slightly suspicious at what was going on, but because of a lack of evidence over anything untoward she assumed he was buying these things himself with his extra money from working for the defendant.
The court heard how the boy stopped going to the country park and campsite and that it wasn’t until 2008/09 that he told someone, his sister, about what has happened to him six years earlier.
It wasn’t until May 2019 that the boy, now an adult, reported the crimes to police.
The court heard how in the near two decades since the abuse, the victim had suffered a result of the trauma of the sexual assaults on him, suffering from depression and anxiety for a decade.
Former taxi driver Adrian Gartshore-Taylor was arrested on May 28, 2019, after which he admitted abusing the victim to police officers. He did it for his own ‘sexual gratification’, the prosecution told the court.
Adrian Gartshore-Taylor, 66, now of West End Road, Morecambe, pleaded guilty to four counts of incident assault against a boy under the age of 14 and one count of indecency with a child or boy under 16.
He was jailed for a total of seven years.
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