'Tramp' paedophile jailed for 13 years
A senior council officer who dressed as a tramp to sexually assault a string of schoolgirls was jailed for 13 years today.
During a "bizarre" double life of respectable family man and brutal paedophile, father of two Anthony De Boise would leave his £500,000 home, don dark sunglasses and scruffy clothes and then stake out local beauty spots for young victims.
Some had been playing with friends, while others were skipping school, when they fell into the clutches of a man colleagues called "Mr Nice Guy".
Those he targeted during a seven-year reign of terror were marched into wooded glades - sometimes at knifepoint - where they suffered often lengthy ordeals of pain and degradation.
London's Southwark Crown Court heard that most were cowed into submission with threats of rape, injury and death before being ordered to strip. All were deeply traumatised and left with near-crippling phobias.
The attacks between 1989 and 1996 triggered a massive but fruitless police hunt. There was also an unsuccessful appeal on the BBC's Crimewatch programme.
De Boise's unkempt appearance and the way he disguised his cultivated voice convinced officers they were hunting an unemployed down-and-out.
The reality could hardly have been more different. Their culprit otherwise dressed impeccably, was a qualified architect and enjoyed a well-paid job as a Wandsworth Council planning officer. Friends regarded him as "kind, caring, decent, considerate and gentle... someone who could be trusted".
It all helped to put police off the scent for 17 years...until his sister accused him of plundering his father's estate. Although the charge was later dropped, the Met's cold case rape unit found a match between his DNA and samples and those retrieved after his attacks.
De Boise, of Hurtbank Cottages, Holmbury St Mary, Surrey, admitted six indecent assaults.
