Former vicar who raped six-year-old boy in church jailed for life

A former vicar who raped a six-year-old boy in his church has been sentenced to life in prison.

Ifor Whittaker, 80, was sentenced for the third time after admitting rape and gross indecency with the child in St John The Baptist Church in Sedlescombe, East Sussex.

While serving as a priest there he used the name Colin Pritchard.

Whittaker had baptised the boy, who he went on to abuse in the church's vestry in the 1990s, Hove Crown Court heard.

Sentencing him to a discretionary life sentence, Judge Gary Lucie said: "You are a predatory paedophile and have been for many years.

"I doubt that you will ever cease to be a serious danger to young boys but that risk cannot be reliably estimated at this time.

"In my judgment, the combination of offences is so serious that only custody can be justified, and for the reasons that I have already given the appropriate sentence in this case, on count 1, is a sentence of life imprisonment."

Whittaker is already serving a 16-year sentence for abusing a boy between 1987 and 1991 after a trial in 2018.

The former Church of England priest had previously been jailed for five years in 2008 for the abuse of two children in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, between 1979 and 1983.

Offending 'of the most serious kind'

Whittaker has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of eight years before he will be eligible to be considered for parole.

His fourth victim told police he was terrified during the attack and tried to bury the memories of what happened, the court heard, but said "it had come back to him in pieces over the years".

Judge Lucie told Whittaker: "You have been responsible for committing serious sexual offences against four young boys over a long period whilst abusing your position as a trusted member of the community as a vicar.

"This offending is of the most serious kind."

(c) Sky News 2024: Former vicar who raped six-year-old boy in church jailed for life