Pervert targeted schoolgirls in Stratford - The Stratford Observer

Pervert targeted schoolgirls in Stratford

Stratford Editorial 18th May, 2016 Updated: 28th Oct, 2016   0

A PERVERT targeted schoolgirls in uniform during two separate incidents in Stratford after indecent images of children had already been found on his computer.

Christopher Gale appeared at Warwick Crown Court after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting one of the girls and two charges of common assault on the other girl.

The 36 year-old of Masons Road, also admitted possessing indecent images of children, possessing extreme pornography and assaulting a police officer.

Prosecutor Daniel Oscroft said in August last year a male acquaintance was at Gale’s home when he noticed a search term on his laptop for a little girl performing a sex act.




Concerned, the man contacted the police who went to the address and seized Gale’s computer. On it they found images of naked young girls together with extreme pornography.

Then on December 3, a 15 year-old girl and a schoolboy friend were waiting inside Morrison’s in Alcester Road, for their mothers to collect them after leaving school.


Gale approached them and asked them to go outside. They went and Gale then asked the boy for a sweet and, with his hands behind his back, opened his mouth and put his tongue out for the boy to feed him the sweet. The girl, who was in uniform, thought that was ‘a bit creepy,’ and she and the boy walked away.

After her friend was collected by his mother, the girl went back into the store, and when she came out again a little later to see if her mother had arrived she saw Gale by a bench. He came over to her, put his hand on her shoulder and began to slide it down to her breast.

She pushed him away and told him to get off her, and raised the alarm with customer services who arranged his detention.

The police came and arrested him, and again he displayed “very curious behaviour,” said Mr Oscroft, telling the officer: “haven’t you got big brown eyes? What a beautiful man.”

But he began flailing his arms around, so was handcuffed, and he then suddenly lunged at the officer grabbing at his arm before being restrained again.

He was granted bail, and in February a 17 year-old girl, again in school uniform, was pushing her bike along the footpath near Stratford railway station.

As she approached some steps Gale approached her, and she thought he was going to tell her off for having her bike on the pavement – but he pointed towards her waist, and as she looked down, he flicked her nose with his finger.

He then told her to put her bike against the wall because she was under arrest, but she realised he was not a policeman.

Gale asked her how old she was, and when she told him he responded: “Ooh, you’re a bit young, but it is my birthday.”

Suspecting he had some sexual motive, the girl rolled her bike into the road and tried to ride off, at which he grabbed her arm, but she managed to get away.

Jamie Strong, defending, said Gale had been in custody since that incident, but a probation officer had been unable to assess him for a community order or suspended sentence ‘because of the stance he was taking’ when he was interviewed.

And since then a psychiatric report had been prepared, which the probation officer had not had the opportunity to see.

Judge Richard Griffith-Jones adjourned the case for the probation officer to investigate whether any programmes and residential condition might be available for Gale in the light of the psychiatric report.

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