A MAN carried out sexual assaults on women in Coventry – within days of completing a suspended sentence for downloading indecent images of children.
And at Warwick Crown Court, Mark Gillings pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting one woman in June and an attempted sexual assault on another woman last month.
Both attacks took place in areas of Walsgrave said to be popular dog-walking routes, although it was not said in court whether his victims were actually walking dogs at the time.
Gillings (31) of Vincent Wyles House, Attoxhall Road, Wyken, Coventry, denied a further charge of sexually assaulting a woman in the area in September last year.
Accepting that not guilty plea, prosecutor Graham Russell explained that the victim of that incident had attended an identity procedure and had not picked out Gillings.
And his barrister Lynette McClement pointed out: “In interview he admitted the offences against the other two women, but not this offence.”
Suggesting a pre-sentence report was necessary, Miss McClement observed that the first of the offences Gillings had admitted was committed within days of him completing a suspended sentence for sexual offences of a different nature.
Deputy Judge Michael Stokes agreed, and adjourned the case for a pre-sentence report to be prepared, and remanded Gillings in custody.
In December 2015 Gillings, then of Ribble Road, Stoke, Coventry, had been sentenced to eight months in prison suspended for 18 months after he had admitted making indecent images of children and distributing one of them.
On that occasion the court had heard the police executed a warrant at his home after it had come to their attention that he had been receiving indecent images.
Officers seized his computer and two mobile phones, on which they found 125 still images and one movie classed as being in category A – showing children being subjected to penetrative sex acts.
There were 61 category B images, showing children involved in non-penetrative sexual activity, and a further 359 images in category C, of children in naked or indecent poses.
Gillings’ phones also contained 48 prohibited CGI images depicting children involved in sex acts with adults and ten images of extreme pornography showing adults of both sexes taking part in sex acts with animals.
When he was arrested for those matters, Gillings admitted he had viewed the images, but had deleted them afterwards.
Sentencing Gillings, Judge Richard Griffith-Jones had told him: “You have downloaded photographs, which provides a hideous market for individuals who abuse children.
“These are real children. No society can stand by and let its children be exploited in that despicable way.”
