A serial paedophile told police “that didn’t happen hun” after he was arrested over his sick crimes.
Derek Moon subjected his young victims to a catalogue of sickening sexual abuse over the course of nearly two decades. The rapist gave one girl a sleeping pill before attacking her in a semi-conscious state and groomed another by giving her vinyl records.
Liverpool Crown Court heard on Monday, July 24, that the 56-year-old’s offending spanned nearly 20 years, between the early 1980s and the turn of the millennium. Robert Dudley, prosecuting, described how Moon – of Chatham Street in the Georgian Quarter, Liverpool city centre – repeatedly sexually assaulted one complainant over the course of several years when she was aged as young as eight and he was in his early teens while offering her records from his vinyl collection.
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The defendant gave another girl a sleeping pill following an event at a social club. She then recalled Moon groping her as she “drifted in and out of consciousness” before waking to find herself partially undressed.
Another awoke to find him placing her hand on his penis on another occasion. When confronted, he claimed it had merely been a “drunken mistake”.
Moon then raped a teenage girl when he was in his mid 20s and sexually assaulted another teen in his early 30s, having plied her with alcohol and cannabis. He denied the offences under interview following his arrest after the complainants came forward, even saying of one of the allegations: “No, that didn’t happen hun.”
Anthony O’Donohoe, defending, highlighted his client’s guilty plea and told the court that he had suffered from poor health. Moon admitted rape and 12 counts of sexual assault and was jailed for 12 years and five months.
Sentencing, the Honorary Recorder of Liverpool Judge Andrew Menary KC said: “The description of the offending by each of the women involved – young children at the time – is of serial, regular abuse. When arrested and interviewed, on several occasions you dismissed the allegation as lies and fantasy.”
