A PREDATOR who pleaded guilty to seven charges of committing sex offences against children in the 1990s is heading for prison – with a sentence of 18 years. He won the trust of children by pretending he was a caretaker.

The man has been named as David Pearce, now aged 70. He is from Cambridgeshire but the attacks were committed at a lido in Barking. His conviction is largely due to a painstaking investigation by the Metropolitan Police, who presented forensic evidence to Snaresbrook Crown Court. 

Pearce pleaded guilty to seven charges at his first appearance in court on 6th May. He faced twelve other charges relating to sexual crimes against twelve further children, carried out in the 1990s. The prosecution chose to leave those charges on his file after Pearce had confirmed his guilty plea to the other seven crimes. He returned to the Court for sentencing on Friday, 3rd July.

Pearce committed the offences in 1990. He pretended to be a caretaker who was looking for some lost keys. He persuaded a group of four young children to help him and lured them into a changing area, where he assaulted them. When the children got away, they ran to a nearby police station to report what had happened. This was very helpful to the police, as they were able to take statements and gather forensic evidence from the scene. It also shows how shortsighted the Metropolitan Police policy of only having one, unstaffed, police station per borough. Would the children have been able to reach a police station that had been further away?

The police could not identify the culprit from the DNA evidence they collected and all their other inquiries did not succeed in finding him. The case moved forward in 2019, when Pearce was arrested for an offence of voyeurism: his DNA proved to be a perfect match with the DNA collected at the Lido. Police then found a statement relating to an assault on a 13 year old girl in 1996 – an assault carried out by a man who said he was looking for keys. The girl identified Pearce at an identification parade.

Detective Constable Tony Anionwu from the Metropolitan Police Specialist Crime Unit said that Pearce was a predator. “His actions had a lasting impact, and I would like to thank the victim-survivors for their unwavering resilience and profound patience while we strived for justice. […] we remain committed to securing justice for anyone who has experienced a sexual assault, no matter when they occurred, and over the past five years we have more than tripled arrests and charges for this crime.”

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