Sex offender given job as youth leader

(First Edition)

A West Midlands council's appointment of a convicted sex offender as a youth leader was 'like appointing a burglar as a nightwatchman', a judge said yesterday. Jailing David Handy, 48, for five years, widower Judge Michael Mott told Wolverhampton Crown Court that the children's parents of the children, 'had every reason to be bitter'. Handy, of Wall Heath, Dudley, employed by Dudley council, West Midlands who worked for Dudley council admitted 14 charges of indecently assaulting was jailed for five years for a series of indecency offences against boys aged 6 to 11.

Judge Michael Mott said: told Wolverhampton Crown Court: ' said: 'The parents of these children have every reason to be bitter, not only towards Handy, but towards the local authority.'

Handy , 48, of Brookside Way, Wall Heath, Dudley, West Midlands, admitted 14 charges of indecent assault and asked for four others offences to be taken into consideration.

Melbourne Inman, for the prosecution, said that in 1981 he had been recieved given a a conditional discharge d by a court in Woolwich, south-east London, after for admitting indecently assaulting three boys.

Dudley Council was aware of the conviction when it appointed him in 1984. A spokesman for Dudley council said after the hearing that while it knew of the previous conviction it had checked with the Department of Education and Science which said Handy was not on its list of people banned from working with children. Since 1986 it had operated a strict code of practice under which people convicted of offences against children were not employed on youth work.