Man found guilty of gunpoint sex attack (From Salisbury Journal)

Man found guilty of gunpoint sex attack

2:38pm Wednesday 4th July 2012 in News

A MAN has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl at gunpoint while her boyfriend looked helplessly on.

The jury at Salisbury Crown Court took just over two hours to find Keith Henderson, 57, formerly of Cooks Close in Fugglestone Red, guilty after being told he was a billion times more likely to have committed the crime than anyone else due to a DNA profile match.

The attack happened on Salisbury’s Town Path in the early hours of October 7, 2001, but despite a large-scale police investigation and appeals on the television programme Crimewatch, no suspect was found until a decade later.

Henderson, who was working as a close constable at the Cathedral Close in 2001, was arrested on October 4 last year and charged with indecently assaulting the girl, causing actual bodily harm to the boy, false imprisonment of them both and possession of an imitation firearm, because the authorities cannot be sure if it was a real gun or not.

He denied all five offences but was found guilty after the two-and-a-half day trial.

Judge Douglas Field has retired to consideer his sentence.