Paedophile babysitter gets 15 years for abuse of girls

A PAEDOPHILE babysitter who gained the trust of a mother by using a picture of himself with Tony and Cherie Blair was jailed yesterday for 15 years.

Mark Tann, who was a member of the Labour Party, a churchgoer and a charity fundraiser, also used the Labour Party’s internet service provider to send indecent pictures.

As well as abusing a nine-year-old girl and a four-year-old girl, he offered to trade indecent pictures on the

internet.

He was caught when a complaint from one of the girls’ mothers coincided with the disclosure that he had sent an indecent picture of a baby via the service provider of the free e-mail service, Canterbury Crown Court heard.

Tann, aged 29, of Highgate Road, Whitstable, Kent, had pleaded guilty to 24 charges including two of rape on a four-year-old girl.

Eleanor Laws, prosecuting, told the court how Tann established himself in the Whitstable community and claimed to have worked as a babysitter for 10 years, as well as raising funds for charities including the NSPCC.

He also set up two websites advertising babysitting services and offering a chatroom service for other babysitters and nannies, she said.

In July 2001 a lone parent contacted Tann after spotting an advert in a shop. When they met, he told her he worked in a charity shop and gave her details of another mother for reference.

When he babysat for a nine-year-old girl, he kept waking her up and played a pornographic video in front of her, the court heard.

The following morning, Tann showed her mother a number of photographs including one of himself with Tony and Cherie Blair.

When Tann was arrested and his house searched in March 2002, indecent photographs of the girl were found.

Ms Laws said officers also found a large number of photos of children, a doll in his bed, children’s clothes, indecent Polaroids of a girl and images of children printed off his computer.

In his first interview, Tann tried to explain anything untoward found at his home and the allegation made by the mother.

Police then contacted the mother of the four-year-old girl in the indecent photo who identified her daughter.

She too had spotted a hand-written advert of Tann’s in June 2001 and had arranged to meet him with her two children, Ms Laws said.

The court heard how Tann reassured her with references which she tried to check, with no reply. She did not use him until after he had invited her to a Christian meeting with her children.

Ms Laws said the mother had described him as coming across as dedicated to children.

He babysat for her regularly between November 2001 and March 2002 when the four-year-old girl told her mother that Tann did “rude things to her” just before his arrest.

An examination of Tann’s computer revealed more than 500 indecent images of children stored on the hard drive and 200 on floppy disc.

Some were video clips showing children being sexually abused. Oliver Saxby, defending Tann, told the court that in mitigation Tann had no previous convictions.

He said: “His decline into this behaviour was recent, rapid and out of character.”

He also asked the judge to take into account Tann’s guilty plea, removing the need for a trial.