15-year sentence for Welton rapist

Ralph Patten was told by Recorder Andrew Easteal that he had deliberately exploited his victim for his own sexual gratification.

Recorder Easteal, passing sentence, told Patten: “You are an articulate and intelligent man but you are also remorseless, manipulative, ruthless and entirely self absorbed.”

Patten, 57, of Dunholme Road, denied rape together with two charges of indecency with a child and a further charge of indecent assault, but was convicted by a jury following a trial last year at Stoke on Trent Crown Court.

He was placed on the sex offenders’ register for life and given an indefinite sexual harm prevention order.

Amy Earnshaw, prosecuting, said that Patten raped the girl on three occasions when she was 15 years old. As a result she became pregnant and subsequently gave birth to a child.

Patten also indecently touched the girl and persuaded her to perform a sex act on him in return for payment.

Miss Earnshaw described the girl as “vulnerable” and told the court she had been significantly affected by what happened to her.

Karen Walton, in mitigation, said: “He has had a trial and still maintains, to a degree, that he has not committed these offences.

“I am asked to say on the behalf of the defendant that he wishes to apologise to the complainant that he made her pregnant at such a young age.”

Miss Walton said that Patten had been living abroad before returning to the UK to face the charges.

Since then his wife has died in Thailand.