Hamilton, Bermuda: 47-year-old Dennis Eldridge, who was sexually abused as a child, was jailed for ten years by a Supreme Court Judge for abusing a young boy, according to a CMC report.
Eldridge, who also hoard almost 3,500 child pornography images, was caught when the victim, who became physically sick with stress, told his parents of the abuse that stretched over the course of several years when Eldridge visited his home. He was also abused when his family visited Eldridge’s home. He was under 10 at the time of the crimes, the CMC report said.
Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves, in sentencing on Wednesday, said that there were no mitigating factors in the case apart from the misery Eldridge suffered from being abused himself as a child, which meant he was getting a lighter sentence than he would otherwise. Prosecutor Cindy Clarke said the defendant took advantage of trust placed in him by the child’s family to commit the abuse when he was alone with the boy.
The CMC report stated that police raided Eldridge’s home when the allegations surfaced and found thousands of photographs and videos of child pornography on his computers. They included images of bestiality and children as young as five years old being raped and forced into sex acts by adults.
Eldridge, who was employed in the field of computers and technology, also worked as a guitar teacher for the Bermuda School of Music.
He pleaded guilty in November to sexually exploiting the victim on five different occasions between January 2009 and April 2011. He also admitted to accessing child pornography on 11 different occasions. The prosecution chose to charge him with specimen charges rather than for
every incident of abuse and every pornographic image
Justice Greaves ordered him to participate in a sex offender treatment programme. He said he committed a “serious breach of trust” against the victim and his family.
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