Mum demands closure of Aldridge bail hostel
Thursday, October 16, 2008, 08:00
The mother of three, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has broken a three-year silence to demand her son's attacker is charged and support a campaign to close the bail hostel she says housed the convicted paedophile.
Andrew Jones, 47, was living at the Aldridge hostel in Stonnal Road when she says he groomed and abused her son, who was then 14.
Jones was on licence in 2004 from a seven-year sentence for sexual offences against boys when he met his victim, who lived near to the hostel.
The mum told the Advertiser that she had no idea a hostel for sex offenders was so close to their home and explained how her son's nightmare began in 2004 when he tried to help a stranger.
"He was with his friends when Andrews asked for directions to the swimming baths," she said.
"He than asked my son for his phone number, saying it was just in case he got lost.
"After that he kept phoning him, hanging around the shops where the boys meet, buying sweets, cigarettes and alcohol.
"He groomed my son and even followed him to school."
Andrews, she said, could build up contact with local children because his curfew from the hostel ran from 8am to 11pm.
"That's the time when kids are going to and from school and when they play out.
Andrews was able to win the teenager's confidence and when his mother was away, is alleged to have sexually assaulted the boy in his own home.
The mother finally found out what had happened when Andrews was arrested after trying to groom a 15-year-old boy from Worcester over the internet – a crime for which he later received an eight-year sentence.
Police officers found evidence linking him to the Aldridge teenager and contacted his mother, saying they suspected he had been the victim of a serious crime.
But it was only after her son was interviewed for the third time that the full details emerged.
"When I look back I can't believe that I hadn't realised what had happened because from being a very popular boy, he became withdrawn and spent more and more time in his room," she said, adding that the experienced has changed her son forever.
But the mother said that although her son is now willing to to give evidence in court and despite her pleas to police, Andrews still has not been charged.
"Police have told me that it is still an open case but it is three years now and they say it isn't high priority," she said.
"I still want that man charged and brought to justice for what he did to my boy.
"I think it is time that we started protecting children and stopped protecting perverts."
The family has now moved house to get away from the hostel, but the mother says she cannot escape the fear.
"I look at single men in the park near to children and think 'Is he from the hostel?'," she said
"What I want is to get that place shut down."
Asked why Jones had not been charged, a spokeswoman for West Midlands Police said: "We are continuing to make inquires into possible sexual abuse several years ago involving a potential victim from the West Midlands who would have been in his early teens at the time.
George Makin
# - Dusan Popratnjak - 11/1/08; 4:37:42 PM -
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An Aldridge woman has spoken of her anger and disgust that the man she claims sexually abused her son has never been charged.