She said: “I have spent 14 years serving this sentence and he walks out of court a free man.”In a second case yesterday an 82-year-old Dunkirk veteran was put on two years’ probation for indecently assaulting a nine-year-old girl after Newcastle Crown Court was told he had been forced out of his lifelong home in Embleton, Northumberland, because of the climate surrounding paedophiles.Judge David Wood told Charles Varnham he was escaping jail because of his previous good record and the fact that he had lost his home which “seems punishment itself”.. A small child pointed at Julie Legg inside her neat semi-detached house and said: “There’s one of them, why are they not out of their house?”

A small child pointed at Julie Legg inside her neat semi-detached house and said: “There’s one of them, why are they not out of their house?”
Neither Mrs Legg, nor her husband, Gary, a 36-year-old builder, has ever been convicted of a sexual offence against a child. But the firebombed wreck of a car sits outside the house on the Paulsgrove estate in Portsmouth, and little boys and girls point fingers because their parents say there are “bad people” inside.When the teenage arsonists and stone-throwers came to Mrs Legg’s home at 3.30am six days ago, they were fuelled by the same ill-founded rumour that has made this densely packed council estate the domain of a lynch mob.A whisper had developed on Saturday night that the Legg family home was occupied by one of the 20 alleged paedophiles named on the Paulsgrove residents’ “list of power” and the singed shrubbery in the driveway yesterday gave testimony to the results.Were it not for the fact that the Legg family were staying at a relative’s villa in Spain at the time of the firebombing, the prejudice that has cost them thousands of pounds in property could have cost them their lives.To add insult to injury, burglars entered the home the following day and relieved Mrs Legg, 30, of her jewellery and the family of its television and video.Speaking yesterday after returning from her holiday less than 24 hours earlier, the young mother said: “They are making innocent people’s lives a nightmare Nobody wants paedophiles around children But I think violence is the wrong way of going about it. Anyone can make up an allegation and a mob would go along and attack that person without any proof.”Since the firebombing, Mrs Legg and her three children have been living in fear of a repeat attack as children continue to exchange the idle gossip that is blighting their lives.Mrs Legg, who believes her hopes of becoming a childcare worker have been dashed, said: “A little child came past the house and said to his friend ‘There is one of them, why are they not out of their house?’ It made me feel sick.”People who know me know this isn’t true It is the people who don’t know me that I am petrified of I just want people to know it was a mistake. It makes me sick to think that they think a paedophile lives here.”The Leggs – unlike five other innocent families who have fled for fear that they will suffer the same fate after appearing on the “list of power” – have pledged to remain in their home.The one-night moratorium declared by the organisers of the protests yesterday presented hope that normality could return to the streets and alleyways of Paulsgrove.

But just 500 yards from the Legg family home, fresh graffiti on a boarded-up house where another alleged paedophile lived showed the hatred still running through the community.Freshly daubed on the walls of the modern house in Meadowsweet Way, said to have been the home of a married man in his forties convicted of sexually assaulting young girls, were the slogans paraded through Paulsgrove for the past seven nights: “We will not live with pervs”, “Pervie free” and “F*** off pervs”.For community leaders, this and other sites dotted around the post-war estate added to a growing feeling in Paulsgrove yesterday that enough was enough. Father Gary Waddington, the vicar at the church of St Michael and All Angels in the heart of the estate, said: “When we are seeing children carrying banners and marching with their parents through the night that is not the right message we should be sending to the impressionable members of our community.”There is a palpable sense of fear and a profound sadness that all this has happened,” he said. “I think the vast majority of people would now like these marches to end. The difficulty is trying to convince the people leading the protests that this chapter needs to come to a close.”. The Marquess of Blandford broke down and wept in the witness box yesterday as he revealed the ravages wreaked by his years of cocaine addiction. The Marquess of Blandford broke down and wept in the witness box yesterday as he revealed the ravages wreaked by his years of cocaine addiction.
As he took the stand to defend himself against a shoplifting charge, the heir to the £100m Blenheim Palace Estate quietly explained how drug abuse had led to 12 years of criminal convictions for everything from burglary to deception. His personal finances had been taken out of his hands, he said, and even his mobile phone account and storecard were held in another name.But when his eight-year-old son George, the Earl of Sunderland, was mentioned he lost his composure and wept in the witness box.He admitted that he first used drugs in 1981.

But LordBlandford, who denies one charge of theft, insisted he was “a reformed drug addict”, determined to seek help for his problems. On 10 November last year, when he tried to walk out of Harvey Nichols with £237 of unpaid goods, he had been on a day release from the Priory Psychiatric Hospital.Leaving his girlfriend, Edla Griffiths, and her mother waiting in a car outside, he had rushed into the Knightsbridge department store to buy a £425 suitcase and £300 of vouchers.As the Marquess selected two pairs of sunglasses, a guard in a CCTV control room believed he saw him removing a price ticket and possibly a security tag from one pair. Two plain-clothes detectives were alerted and grabbed Lord Blandford as he tried to leave the store. He was found to be carrying two pairs of Cutler & Gross sunglasses and a stick of Clinique men’s deodorant.The Marquess told Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court: “I said I would apologise for any mistake on my part and suggested that we go back into the store and sort my mistake out by crediting these three items on my account.” But the security staff refused to accept his claim of absent-mindedness and he was arrested and taken to Chelsea police station.Under cross examination by Duncan Penny, for the prosecution, the Marquess’s tone became more forceful “I had nothing to hide,” he said.