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Offender Databases James Shergold

James Alfred Shergold

Alias

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Offences

Rape (x6), sexual violation (x4) and indecent assault (x2) of four teenage girls and two women between 1982 and 1995
One of the girls was aged 13 when the offending started, and the others were aged under 16
All offending was in Hastings area

Victims

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Offender Affiliations

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Gang affiliations

none known

Age

Born 1955

Current Location

Was at large in Hastings

Parole/Release Dates

Sentenced to nine years in August 1998
Released on his "sentence end date" May 2007
Now under Extended Supervision for five years

Background
Parole Board decision documented here
Has deliberately avoided treatment, and the psychologist says he is at "very high risk" of re-offending, describing Shergold's "characteristic lack of honesty, manipulative behaviour and minimization of his offending". The Parole Board wisely kept him in prison until the last day.
Many of the charges are representative of the repeated trauma suffered by Shergold's victims. He was thought to lack real understanding of the effect his actions had on the women and Justice Doogue said "he took advantage in a quite disgraceful way."

Sentencing notes from Justice Doogue in 1998:
Two of the four indecent assault offences involved girls between the ages of 12 and 16 years. Nearly all of the offending in respect of the five complainants took advantage of the close friendship or relationship of the young women involved with your wife and their connections with your home. The offending spans the years from 1982 to 1995. The worst of the offending, including all the rape offences, four of which were representative charges, and all of the unlawful sexual connection offences, three of which were representative charges, relates to a young relative of your wife who between 1988 and 1991, when she was 13 to 15 years, regularly stayed at your home during weekends. On your own evidence you prevailed upon her at the age of 13 to engage in acts of manual masturbation and at the age of 15 to have intercourse with you on one occasion.

She, however, gave detailed evidence of the first occasion upon which you forcibly raped her and of the frequent subsequent acts of rape and forced oral sex upon you. You took advantage of her availability to you in your household. You breached the trust owed to this young woman, who was innocent of sexual knowledge when you first used her. She, like other of your victims, felt powerless to resist you or complain, particularly because of her love and respect for your wife. There was no reason for the jury to reject her evidence. You admitted the earliest of the offending in 1982 and 1984. Your earliest victim was another relative of your wife. In 1982, when at the age of 16 she was staying at your place, you exposed your penis and, when she refused to masturbate you, you forced her to do so.

Two years later, again at your home, you violated a 15 year old relative of your wife. This time the indecent assault took the form of oral sex upon her followed by very brief digital penetration. The fourth of your victims was a young friend of the one you were found guilty of raping. In 1990, when she was 15 years old, she was in the front seat of your car between you and her friend. You exposed your penis and forced her to masturbate you. You denied it happened, but the jury was fully entitled to reject your denial.

The last of your victims was again well known to you. Indeed, she and you agreed that some six months before the offence, at the turn of the year between 1994 and 1995, you had consensual intercourse in circumstances which do you no credit but are totally irrelevant for present purposes. Your 29 year old victim was gardening at your place. Again you exposed your penis and sought to have her masturbate you. When she refused, you rubbed up against her but desisted in your actions when she vehemently rejected you. You claimed to believed she would consent and stopped the moment she did not. However, the jury was well entitled to reject that line of defence.'

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Corrections and Additional Information
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