Man jailed for sex attacks in mortuary

A BRITISH man was yesterday jailed for seven years after being convicted of carrying out sex attacks on two teenage girls in the hospital mortuary where he worked.

William Martin, 56, plied the teenagers with vodka, showed them dead bodies and showered with them before assaulting them, the jury at Exeter Crown Court heard.

Martin, who worked at North Devon District Hospital at the time of the assaults, was told by Judge Graham Cottle as he passed sentence: “The facts of this case leave me quite satisfied that you pose a risk to females.

“Quite how and why that is so at this stage of your life, I do not know, but the fact that you pose a risk is clearly of obvious relevance to the question of sentence and the sentencing process.”

The married father-of-two of Meadow Road, Barnstaple, Devon, was sentenced to five years for attempting to rape a 16-year-old girl at the mortuary in November last year.

He was sentenced to a further two years, to run consecutively, for indecently assaulting an 18-year-old girl at the mortuary between January and November last year. The jury returned not guilty verdicts on three further charges of indecent assault relating to the 18-year-old.

Judge Cottle told Martin, who is no longer employed at the Barnstaple hospital where he began work 20 years ago, that he subjected the 16-year-old to a “very frightening experience which continued over a prolonged period of time”.

He said Martin’s behaviour towards the two teenagers had “trademark features” and was almost identical.

The 16-year-old told police how in the mortuary Martin showed her pictures of bodies then gave her a vodka and coke “to calm my nerves”.

The mortuary worker brought out hospital clothing and told her to take off all her own clothes before putting them on, the girl said. Martin showed her a body, then said they had “got to get cleaned up because we might take infection home”.

The teenager said Martin got into the shower with her, touched her and forced her to touch him. She said he then gave her two towels and told her to sit on a sofa where he tried to have sex with her and sexually assaulted her. The girl said she told him: “I do not want to do this” and that she was “scared of him”.

When a text from her mother arrived on her mobile phone she could not reply as she had little credit, but Martin offered his.

While he was fetching it, the girl made a 16-second 999 call to the police, which was played to the court.