Colin James: Bishop’s Stortford man given prison sentence for multiple child sex offences over four years
A Bishop’s Stortford man is beginning a prison sentence after being convicted of multiple child sex offences against the same child over a period of four years.
Colin James, 50, of Parsonage Lane, was charged in February with six offences: four counts of sexual activity with a child and two of sexual assault.
The offences, all of which were non-penetrative, happened between November 2018 and January 2023.
Following a five-day trial at St Albans Crown Court that started on August 27, James, who pleaded not guilty, was convicted by majority verdicts of 11-1 on five of the six charges he faced. He was cleared of one of the sexual assault allegations.
At a sentencing hearing at the same court on Friday (October 18), James was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.
He was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order and an indefinite restraining order. Furthermore, he will be on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
James, who was living in London Road in Stortford at the time of the offences, is known to hundreds of train passengers at the town’s railway station as a member of Greater Anglia staff in the ticket office.
A spokesperson for the train operator said: “Immediately upon discovering these allegations, Greater Anglia removed Colin James from duty.
“He has not been at work since then, and his contract has been terminated.”