A FORMER mayor of Pembroke’s bid to challenge his convictions for child abuse offences was rejected last week by senior judges.

David Boswell, known as Dai, was sentenced to 18 years in prison last July after being convicted of raping and indecently assaulting two young girls during the 1990s.

He was elected a Conservative county councillor for Pembroke St Mary North in May 2017 and went on to become mayor.

He was suspended by the party after being charged by police.

During his 2018 trial at Swansea crown court, former soldier Boswell, then aged 58, claimed his victims, now in their 30s, had made up the allegations against him.

He was convicted of the rape and indecent assault of one of the girls and of the indecent assault of the other another.

Boswell, of Bush Street in Pembroke Dock, was cleared of three other counts of indecent assault against the two complainants.

He was put on the sex offenders register for the rest of his life, and made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order to control his access to children aged under 16.

The court heard that one of his victims - now an adult woman - was still too afraid to visit Pembroke Dock in case she came across Boswell.

The other said in a victim impact statement that she still had nightmares about what Boswell had done to her and thought about it everyday.

The case returned to court on Thursday, November 28, when Lord Justice Hickinbottom, Mr Justice Lewis, and Mr Justice Jacobs sat as the Court of Appeal in Swansea.

In legal submissions it was argued on Boswell's behalf that there were issues with the way the judge in the original trial had handled the jury's request to see the victims' videoed interviews a second time.

The principle complaint was that after the jurors saw the footage again the judge failed to properly summarise the cross-examination of the defendants and did not remind the jury of the defendant's case.

Mr Justice Jacobs said he and his fellow appeal judges had read the transcript of what the trial judge had told the jury, and could find nothing in the way the trial judge had approached the request to see the video statements, nor in his handling of the summarising of the cross-examination and defence case, that could arguably be said to have led to an unfairness.

The bid to seek leave to appeal against the conviction was refused.

Any young person in need of help or advice can contact Childline on 0800 1111 or childline.org.uk