A VICTIM of a serial Ipswich paedophile today told of her disgust after his sentence was almost halved.

A VICTIM of a serial Ipswich paedophile today told of her disgust after his sentence was almost halved.

Predator Raymond Hawes, formerly of Stratford Road, was originally jailed for 18 years when he appeared at Ipswich Crown Court on September 14 last year.

However, after an appeal hearing, the 67-year-old could now be eligible for parole in just five years.

Hawes sentence for two counts of indecent assault on a boy, five of buggery on another boy and three counts of indecent assault on his foster daughter and one of attempted rape, was reduced to ten years at the Court of Appeal.

The offences all took place between 1962 and 1979. In addition to those guilty pleas, Hawes had also admitted 18 child pornography charges.

Today, Lorraine Garwood, his foster daughter, who is still traumatised by six years of abuse, agreed to be fully identified as she spoke of her anger that Hawes' original sentence was deemed too harsh.

The 37-year-old, of Dombey Road, Ipswich, said: “I'm disgusted. How can they say they have given him too long after what he's done to me and others?

“I will never get over it. Why should they feel sorry for him? He knew what he was doing and yet they can say his sentencing was too long.

“I will have my sentence until the day I die. I felt, for once in my life, I had won. Now he's still getting the last laugh. There's no stopping him. He's just a monster. He just wrecks people's lives.”

Ms Garwood said she has never got over the sickening abuse Hawes' put her through and is still suffering today.

Over the past 30 years she said she has suffered from depression, battled with alcohol problems, eating disorders, finds it difficult to leave her home and still has nightmares about what happened.

Ms Garwood believes Hawes' successful appeal will be a blow to other victims who found the courage to come forward and face him in court.

She said: “I have been ill, and it's not helping with him getting less. I have been to hell and back.

“My family are really angry with him. He's not going to change when he comes out. He might not be able to touch children, but he will still use his computer.

“I'm so, so angry. I was the one who started the court case and now I feel like I have let others down.

“He is making it sound like he is the victim.”

N What do you think of the reduction to Hawes' sentence? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk

DURING his appeal, the judges heard Hawes bought another computer after his was seized in October 2005 and found to contain 2,553 indecent images of children.

When he was re-arrested in January last year a further 59,287 child porn images were found on the second computer.

Although Hawes told Marcus Needham, the man compiling his original pre-sentencing report, he was not interested in children sexually, he also admitted his previous victims were aged between 11 and 16, and there were too many to remember.

However he did not regard himself as a paedophile and claimed to hate them.

The Court of Appeal judgement states Judge John Holt, who handed out the original 18-year sentence was incorrect to punish Hawes so severely.

Judge Holt told Ipswich Crown Court the reason he did so was he believed Hawes chose to ignore the offences he was being sentenced for at the time, when he appeared in court in 1987 and admitted other child sex charges.

Therefore Hawes was sentenced at the 1987 tariffs and did not get a discount on his sentence for his guilty pleas last year.

The appeal court stated: “the appellant can not be punished for not admitting the offences”.

Summing up, the court's transcript reads: “We have a statement from the female victim which indicates her whole life has been affected and blighted by the behaviour of the appellant.

“She has had to live with that all those years and indeed continues to do so.

“In order to achieve the appropriate sentence this court had decided that instead of some of the sentences being ordered to run consecutively, all sentences on counts one to 11 of the first indictment should run concurrently, making a total of ten years.”