`Dirty Dozen' paedophile gets 12 years

A PAEDOPHILE who was a member of the same gang as the notorious child killer Sidney Cooke was jailed for 12 years yesterday for abusing boys as young as 10.

Brian Turner, 60, who was nicknamed the Chicken Master for his ability to lure vulnerable youngsters, assaulted children for more than a decade, Snaresbrook Crown Court in east London was told.

He met one of his victims through his links with a child-sex gang that had infiltrated a breakaway scouting organisation. Police believe the ring is one of the largest paedophile networks ever uncovered in Britain. Its members may have abused up to 300 youngsters over the past 30 years.

Turner was also part of the child-sex gang that included Cooke and others convicted of the 1985 killing of Jason Swift. Police believe he introduced Jason to Cooke months before the teenager died.

Snaresbrook Crown Court was told how Turner meticulously "groomed" three of his four most recent victims.

Posing as a "grandfather figure" to lull youngsters and their parents into a false sense of security, he ingratiated himself by taking the children for meals and trips to the cinema and zoo. Later, he turned to violence, beating one boy repeatedly with a stick and partially smothering another with a pillow or towel.

The court was told that on occasions the child abuser would have paedophile friends round to take part in sex sessions which sometimes involved more than one boy.

Turner, whose child molesting offences stretch back 31 years, showed no emotion as Judge David Radford told him:"You are a dangerous paedophile who preys on adolescent boys to satisfy your sexual perversions. You present still, in my judgment, even at the age of 60, a serious risk."

The court was told that another paedophile, Keith Spratt, had helped Turner to assault one of the boys. Spratt, 49, a scoutmaster with the UK Baden-Powell Scout Association, will be sentenced next month. The judge said a fourth victim, aged 13, had been introduced to Turner by another paedophile, Douglas Braithwaite, who was also a scoutmaster.

Turner, of Enfield, Middlesex, who pleaded guilty to a 10 charges - seven of indecent assault, two of conspiracy to commit indecency and one of attempted buggery - was the third paedophile linked to the gang to be jailed so far.

t A predatory paedophile who "declared war on society's standards of decency for its young people" was jailed for life at the Old Bailey yesterday for a series of sex attacks on boys. Michael Griss, 48, of Dagenham, Essex, admitted indecent assaults and buggeries involving five boys between 1979 and 1997. All were under 16.