An author who lived in St Dogmaels and Poppit Sands who was due to be sentenced today (Friday) for indecency with a child has run away.

Colin Richard Shearing, aged 70, had been given seven days to put his affairs in order after a jury convicted him of indecency with a six year old girl.

But he responded by travelling to Paris where he booked into the Hotel de Nation.

Swansea crown court heard that Shearing then moved to a second hotel and then to a third in a bid to stay one step ahead of the police.

Judge Huw Davies said he would sentence Shearing anyway and jailed him for three years in his absence.

He issued a European wide warrant for the arrest of Shearing, who will receive an additional sentence for absconding once he has been traced and arrested.

Judge Davies said Shearing, who had denied the offences, had shown “absolutely no remorse” for what he had done.

Shearing, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and described as once an active member of Theatre Mwldan, Cardigan, twice assaulted the girl in 1980.

The woman told the jury he examined her intimately and persuaded her to touch him indecently.

She said the memories of what had happened came back to her many years later. She was driven to complain, she said, when she discovered Shearing had become involved with a youth theatre and was afraid he would have access to children.

She added that although she did not have any proof she was sure she was not his only victim.

Shearing, now of Taylors Lane, Bosham near Chichester, claimed the incidents had never taken place and said he could not understand why the woman had made the allegations against him.

He agreed that amongst his books, published under the name Colin King, there was a passage dealing with children having sex together.

But, he stressed, it was a work of pure fiction.

Shearing was ordered to register with the police as a sex offender for an indefinite period.

 

UPDATE: Following reports about the court case, Theatr Mwldan released an official statement regarding Shearing.

In it Phil Layton, chairman of the board of directors, said: "Theatr Mwldan as a company and charity was formed in 1992 and to my knowledge, Colin Shearing has never been a member of the organisation and certainly not active in any way."