A sex offender has been brought to justice 26 years after attacking an old lady in the grounds of a mental hospital.

Paul Reeve was just 15 years old when he attacked 74-year-old Lilian Taylor after tricking her into going into an orchard beside Fairfield Hospital in Stotfold, where she was an in patient.

Although police questioned Reeve at the time, he was not charged.
But a cold case investigation and advances in DNA profiling meant that police were finally able to prove that Reeve had carried out the sickening attack.

On Friday, July 9, Reeve, now 41, appeared at Luton Crown Court to admit indecently assaulting the widow on the afternoon of Saturday, September 29, 1984.

Although Mrs Taylor died from heart failure in 1989, members of her family including her son Jack, now a pensioner, were in court.

Judge Andrew Bright QC, hearing the case, heard how in the 1980s, Reeve's father ran the social club at the hospital and Reeve, who lived with his parents in Stotfold, regularly visited.

Bozzie Sheffi, prosecuting, said on the afternoon of September 29 1984 a nursing assistant at the hospital discovered Mrs Taylor on the ground when he went to pick apples in the orchard.

She told a charge nurse she had been the victim of a serious sex attack.
Miss Sheffi told the court how the pensioner had been sitting on a bench near some tennis courts in the hospital grounds when Reeve came up to her from behind and asked the time.

When she told him there was a clock in the reception area of the hospital he left, but returned a short while later to say he had discovered a man injured in the orchard nearby who needed help.

In the orchard she was pushed to the ground by the teenager, who pulled a knife from his pocket and threatened her with it, before carrying out a serious sexual assault on her. Afterwards he took a small amount of cash from her purse and fled the scene.

Mrs Taylor's clothes were sent away for examination and traces of tell-tale fluids were discovered. Although scientists were able to keep the sample, it was not possible to get a DNA profile from it at the time.

In 2008 the case was was looked at again by The Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit's Cold Case Review Unit and with advances in DNA profiling, officers were finally able to say it was Reeve's DNA on the woman's clothing.

In August 2008 Reeve, of Main Road, Langworth, Lincolnshire was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty to indecent assault.

In the years following the attack on Mrs Taylor, Reeve had married and raised a family and, after briefly getting involved in crime during his mid-teens, he had become a law abiding adult.

The court heard his marriage to his wife has now broken up and divorce proceedings are under way.

Dee Connolly, defending, said what had happened in 1984 was a 'lifetime ago' and said he was now a 'very different person'.

She said before his arrest, his wife had considered her husband to be kind, gentle and loving and a good father to her two children.

Because the maximum sentence for indecent assault back in 1984 was two years, it meant that Reeve could not receive a longer sentence.
Passing sentence Judge Bright said Parliament had eventually realised the 'folly' of such short jail terms and increased the maximum to ten years.

But he said it meant he had to sentence Reeve based on what he would have received back in 1984.

He described the attack as 'horrid and distasteful', which in turn had
devastated Mrs Taylor's family.

He said: "It was a shocking offence for a woman of that age to be subjected to."

Giving Reeve credit for his guilty plea, the judge jailed him for 18 months and ordered his name go on the sex offenders register for the next ten years.