Former policeman who was serial paedophile gets life

Daniel Lishman used jobs as a mobile dog-groomer and a TV licensing officer to help him carry out at least eight offences and also posed as a policeman to indecently assault two young girls, Coventry Crown Court heard.

Judge Peter Carr ordered the 37-year-old, of Raunds, Northamptonshire, to serve at least 11 years before he can be considered for parole.

Lishman was convicted at previous hearings of a total of 26 counts and asked for four others to be considered.

The charges, including one of rape and 12 of sexual assault, related to a total of 13 victims, including three with disabilities or learning difficulties, as well as hundreds of indecent images of children.

The serial paedophile was arrested in April last year after attacking a 12-year-old girl while pretending to check on a boiler at an address in Southam, Warwickshire.

Judge Carr was told Lishman, who served with Northamptonshire Police between 1995 and 2002, was linked to a string of other offences after detectives who arrested him found a camera memory card hidden in one of his socks which contained images showing Lishman posing indecently near an eight-year-old girl, who had been "blindfolded" using a pair of taped-up goggles in the back of his dog-grooming van.

Passing sentence, Judge Carr told Lishman it would be not be an exaggeration to describe him as every parent's worst nightmare. He said: "You are in my view an intelligent, but also cunning, devious and extremely plausible man."

Judge Carr added that Lishman had left many of his victims too frightened to go out and also led parents wrongly to blame themselves for what had happened to their children.

Lishman, who showed no emotion as he was sentenced, targeted girls aged between eight and 14, two young boys and a woman in her 20s between early 2001 and February 2010. All but one of the offences were committed in Northamptonshire.

In a statement issued after Lishman was jailed, Northamptonshire Police confirmed that he was required to resign from the force in 2002 after a woman made sexual allegations against him.

Detective Inspector Steve Woliter also appealed for other possible victims to come forward.

The officer, who led the inquiry, said: "Over the years, Daniel Lishman sought the company and attention of children and put himself in a position of trust.

"He took up forms of employment with TV licensing and as a mobile dog groomer to gain people's trust and then abused this.

"We cannot rule out the possibility that there are other victims who have not yet come forward."