Simon Burrows

THE torment of a parent whose children were sexually abused by paedophile Simon Burrows has been revealed in a heartbreaking interview with the Wiltshire Times.

Burrows, 44, formerly of Lacock Gardens, Hilperton, helped set up the Bumble Bees Nursery in Steeple Ashton, which has since closed.

Last Friday he was jailed for eight years after admitting 36 child sex-related charges.

He was only found out after a young girl told her grandmother that Simon, as the children called him, had abused her while playing the tickling game'.

The names of his young victims will never be made public because they are protected by law and neither will those of the parents.

One mother spoke to the Wiltshire Times just before the sentencing and immediately afterwards to convey some of the trauma Burrows caused her and her children.

She said: "I hate him absolutely. I want to scratch his eyes out. He has done the worst possible thing to my family and me.

"I felt so angry and guilty when we found out what he had been doing to my children. I went into shock when the officers from the child protection unit told me and I couldn't stop crying.

"It put an enormous strain on my marriage. The family was going through hell and I felt suicidal. I couldn't face my children. My children wish he was dead. They hate him. They cannot sleep without waking up with nightmares about him. It's horrible.

"We took him completely into our confidence. He threatened them to keep them quiet. He was so clever and manipulative. When the children behaved strangely he put it down to their hormones and said it was their age. Little did we know he was abusing them.

"Looking back I knew there was something about him that was not quite right. I used to ask him questions about police checks for the nursery and so on but he always said they were "perfectly safe".

"Afterwards, whenever we tried to talk about what had happened they would curl up into a ball and cry. They couldn't tell me directly and had to write letters.

"The most heartbreaking thing was that they tried to keep it to themselves. They didn't want to say anything because it would make mum cry. The guilt is huge. Words cannot describe how much I hate him. I wanted to kill myself, just sink into a hole and die.

"When he pleaded guilty people would come up to me and ask if was true. Nobody could believe it. He was so clever. He groomed me to get to the kids. It's been so hard for my husband. They were daddy's children."

Speaking after Burrows was jailed, she added: "I am so relieved but nothing is enough for him. I wanted to look into his eyes but he just sat there hunched over looking at the floor. He deserves to suffer like the children have suffered."

6:55am Friday 9th May 2008

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