A drayman who groped a teen boy while they watched a film then ‘bought his silence’ with a novelty lighter has been jailed.

Maurice Smith, 58, who was known to his victim’s parents and described as a role model for the 13-year-old, carried out the attack in the early 2000s after taking the boy to a computer fair in Blackbird Leys.

The pervert’s victim said in a personal statement that he’d ‘felt a huge surge of relief, started to cry and spent the rest of the day crying’ when he learned jurors at Oxford Crown Court had unanimously convicted Smith of two counts of indecent assault after a re-trial last month.

Jailing him for three years, Judge Maria Lamb said: “It was perfectly clear that your victim throughout the course of what went on expressed his unhappiness and you must have released that as you did in the end desist.

“But I am satisfied thereafter you sought to buy his silence about what you had done by giving him a novelty lighter and taking him to buy an accessory for his PlayStation.”

She added: “You have been able to move on with your life and he has not.

“Whilst I bear in mind as part of the mitigation the consequences for you which are going to be wide ranging and of the immediate prison sentence which is going to be imposed here, it is borne in mind and has to be borne in mind that there have been significant consequences for your victim that have gone on and on over the years while you have been able to continue with your life.”

Jacinta Stringer, prosecuting, said the victim and defendant were known to each other. The older man groped the boy after inviting him to sit on his bed to watch a film.

Smith had been convicted in the mid-80s of indecently assaulting an eight-year-old boy in the same house where he would grope his latest victim a decade-and-a-half later.

In 1997, around five years before the attack sentenced on Friday, Smith completed sex offence rehabilitation courses.

Mitigating, Anthony Rimmer told the court that his client had worked in logistics for a brewery before he was remanded into custody by the judge last month.

His mother had died in 2019 and he now lived alone. Were he sent to prison he would lose his rented home, Mr Rimmer told the court. His son and daughter had written references in his support.

Smith, of Pinnocks Way, Botley, was found guilty of two counts of indecent assault. He had previous convictions, including one for indecent assault.

The defendant must register as a sex offender and abide by a sexual harm prevention order for life.

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