Paedophile pleads to offences that link him to woman serving life for sexual abuse

A convicted paedophile has pleaded guilty to further offences, that link him to a woman who has been jailed for life for child abuse.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said that Paul Pickerill, 66, from Runcorn, had been communicating via WhatsApp messages with Vicki Bevan, from St Helens.

Bevan, 37, was jailed along with Paul Rafferty, 62, and Tony Hutton, 42, at Liverpool Crown Court in May for the systematic abuse of a girl under 10 years of age over a two-year period from 2019 until 2021.

Pickerill was being investigated for other sexual offences when his mobile phone was seized at his home on 5 April 2021.

On this and other electronic devices police found thousands of indecent images of children. There were also thousands of messages between Pickerill and Bevan where they discussed the assault, injury and sexual abuse of children.

The messages were said to be of an extremely distressing nature.

Pickerill was interviewed in prison in Doncaster about the messages with Bevan. He was further arrested and charged with three counts of making indecent images of children, one count of possessing an indecent photograph of a child and one of intentionally encouraging or assisting in the commission of an offence.

On 25 August 2022, at Chester Crown Court, he pleaded guilty to all of the offences. He will be sentenced on 22 September.

Senior Crown Prosecutor Pauline Newrick, of CPS Mersey Cheshire, said: “This has been a very distressing case for the whole prosecution team as there were communications between Pickerill and Bevan that no one should have to read. The content of those messages clearly shows the depths to which Pickerill was prepared go to in encouraging another person to sexually abuse very young children.

"Bevan herself has been convicted and sentenced because of these messages and others coming to light. Without perpetrators like Pickerill, who enable other paedophiles, the abuse of children would not be so extensive. I am pleased that he has pleaded guilty today and now awaits a lengthy sentence."