A former Great Ormond Street Hospital porter has been jailed for life sentence over a string of sexual offences against young boys.
Paul Farrell, who worked as a porter at the world-renowned children’s hospital admitted a total of 69 offences against eight victims over a period of 35 years.
He must serve a minimum term of 18 years after admitting the offences at Wood Green Crown Court.
Farrell worked at the central London children’s hospital between 1994 and 2020. The court heard he did not target patients there, but at least two of his victims claimed they were sexually abused in rooms he had access to.
He got close with the parents of his victims and pretended to be a babysitter in order to access addresses across London.
Judge Noel Lucas QC told Farrell today he had a ‘deep-seated fixation with sexual activity with very young boys’ and that his victims ‘continue to carry the scars of what you did to them’.
‘It is difficult to fully comprehend the fear, confusion and vulnerabilities your young victims must have suffered as you repeatedly used and abused them to satisfy your sexual desires,’ the judge added.
‘On the facts opened to me, I find for the whole of your adult life you have pursued your predatory interest in committing intimate sexual acts with very young boys with an all-consuming determination, irrespective of their attempts to make you desist.
‘You have gone about your predatory interest in sexual activity with young boys with a great deal of cunning and planning. You are clever.’
Prosecutor Paul Douglass said many of the offences were ‘multi-incident’, adding: ‘So we are looking at several hundred discrete acts of sexual abuse over a period of 35 years against boys aged between five or six and 16.
‘Offences against two of the victims happened in Great Ormond Street, in the linen room, which is where the defendant was based for a large period of his employment there. ‘He had a key for it and he locked the door and abused two boys in the linen room.’
He added the true figure of the number of Farrell’s offences was ‘likely to be in the thousands’.
The court heard Farrell kept a diary of threats and bribes for one of his victims, aged 12, and even hid a camera in the boy’s room.
‘Material seized from one of the defendant’s phones shows that he kept a diary in which he noted down, day by day, his strategy to keep them under his control,’ Mr Douglass added.
Farrell’s offences include indecent assault of a boy aged between five and seven between April 1985 and April 1987. He has also admitted 12 charges of indecent assault against another boy from 1992 to 1998, when he was aged between six and 11.
Five counts of indecency with a child in relation to the same alleged victim over the same time – for which Farrell had been expected to face trial – were left to lie on file.
He previously pleaded guilty to a number of charges relating to six other victims, none of whom can be named for legal reasons, who are now aged between eight and 43.
The offences were carried out between 1985 and 2020 and included attempted rape, sexual assault of a child under 13 and making indecent photographs of children. Another 20 charges were left to lie on file.
In a statement read to court, one of Farrell’s victims who was abused alongside his brother said: ‘I now feel hopeless, lost and disgusted at my silence that has allowed you to ruin the lives of so many innocent children.
‘Innocent children like me and my brother will be profoundly scarred by your actions for the rest of our lives.’
One of the brothers was as young as five when the abuse started, with neither sibling knowing what was happening to the other at the time.
Jane Ndeti, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: ‘Paul Farrell carried out an appalling campaign of sexual abuse against eight young children over a period of 35 years.’ She called him ‘a prolific sex attacker who presented himself as a loving family man with a stable job in London’s biggest children’s hospital’.
‘Sexual offences against children are abhorrent crimes,’ she added, ‘These guilty pleas mean that Farrell’s victims will now be spared the ordeal of giving evidence in court.’
A spokesperson for Great Ormond Street Hospital said: ‘The hearings last week have shown the devastating impact of these terrible crimes and our thoughts remain with the brave victims and their families whose stories have been shared in court.
