beast gets five years A DEVASTATED Bolton mother has slammed a five year jail term handed down to a convicted child abuser.

Michael Harry Sheffield, 43, of Tonge Moor Road, Bolton was given the sentence by a judge at Manchester Crown Court last week for offences of gross indecency and indecent assault against young boys over a 21 year period.

He was also charged with taking and possessing indecent photographs.

But the mother of two of his young victims said the five year sentence had "added to the agony" of the families involved.

And she plans to see a solicitor to find out if she can lodge an official objection to the sentence.

The mother, who cannot be named because the young victims cannot be identified, was in tears as she said: "I am so angry, he should have got a lot longer. "There is no justice. People like him should be locked up for life. They say it will be hell for him in prison but it will be nowhere near the hell he has put the kids through.

"The children are completely mixed up and their families are serving a life sentence.

"It makes me sick to think my sons could be bumping into him on the street in a few years time."

The single mum says that at first she found it hard to believe that Sheffield, a trusted family friend who acted as a kindly uncle figure, was a child abuser when a former victim warned her to keep her boys away. But two days later her sons, one now grown up, admitted he had been abusing them since they were young. The devastated mother says she went to the police last August and other victims came forward.

"He was seeing a psychiatrist in prison, but my boys could not get any help until after the court case."

"At first he pleaded not guilty and my sons were faced with the trauma of seeing him in court and giving evidence but he changed his plea in January," she said. "It seems like he got all the help and support and my sons got nothing."

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