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Serial paedophile Scott McCutcheon pleads guilty to abusing fourth schoolboy

Victim’s mother proved right 18 years after warning paedophile could have molested more children

Today at 10:50

A serial pervert has been convicted of sexually abusing a fourth child.

Scott McCutcheon’s guilty pleas at Belfast Crown Court fulfilled the prediction of the mother of his first victim, who said 18 years ago: “I think there are other children who this has happened to. They should come forward so that justice can be done.”

McCutcheon (39) is due to be sentenced next week for indecently assaulting the schoolboy on dates between March 1997 and March 1999.

At the time of the abuse, the paedophile, who was only a teenager, was a sergeant with the sea cadets at its base on Calvin Street in east Belfast.

He used his instructor role at the Training Ship Formidable premises to sexually abuse two young boys in his care between April 2000 and November 2003.

Following a trial in 2006, McCutcheon was sentenced to six and a half years on 13 counts of indecent assault and gross indecency.

He was freed from prison in 2009 under the 50 per cent remission rule but back in the dock a short time later, accused of further child sex offences.

In 2014 McCutcheon pleaded guilty to another seven charges of indecent assault and three counts of gross indecency.

However, he managed to avoid jail after his two-year sentence was suspended for three years.

It was following this that McCutcheon, who grew up on Roslyn Street in east Belfast, left Northern Ireland. A court was told he had received threats from loyalist paramilitaries and was living in fear.

Now based in greater Manchester, the paedophile is again facing the prospect of prison having admitted to molesting a fourth schoolboy.

He is due to be sentenced at Belfast Crown Court on November 7.

After his first conviction in 2005, the mum of his victim urged other boys he had abused to come forward.

Putting him on the sex offenders register for life, Judge Finnegan said: “You acted as a predator, taking advantage of the position of trust given to you by the Sea Cadets to satiate your own desires and, in turn, tried to corrupt these two young men.”

His third victim told detectives how he molested him in a sweet shop on the Ravenhill Road, at a derelict Co-Op building, in a pigeon loft and in the bushes of Ormeau Park. On each occasion the paedophile either fondled the boy or touched him inappropriately.

McCutcheon’s confession to abusing a fourth child means he has been convicted of historic sexual assaults on a minor in each of the past three decades.