Medieval re-enactment fan jailed for 19 years for two decades of abuse

Andrew Kay (58), of Ochre Dyke Walk, Wingfield, was found guilty last Wednesday of four rapes and 11 indecent assaults committed between 1985 and 2004.

The jury at Sheffield Crown Court returned majority verdicts on all 15 counts after deliberating for nearly nine hours following the six-day trial.

Kay (pictured) was ordered to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for life.

During the trial, the victim said Kay had told her when she was a child that “what they did was special” and “nobody else’s business”.

The woman, who is now in her late 30s, said she had got to an age where the abuse “didn’t feel right, but she didn’t think she could do anything about it”.

Kay sexually abused the girl at medieval re-enactment festivals and would tell her fake horror stories about what she would be made to do by other men if she moved away from the area.

She said for anyone on the outside looking in, her childhood looked perfectly normal but she had been “living two lives”.

The court was told how Kay controlled her, she had no freedom and by the time she had reached her early twenties she had “completely had enough”.

Describing the moment she finally fled from Kay’s clutches, the victim said: “I basically felt like I was living in a dream and that at some point I would wake up and be back in the nightmare.”

Det Con Rachel Watts said Kay’s grooming behaviour had begun when the girl was a child and continued into her adulthood. 

“The victim made the brave decision to report years of sexual abuse and we launched a police investigation in 2016,” said Det Con Watts.

“The victim has shown exceptional courage to share with officers the horrific abuse she faced at the hands of Andrew Kay.

“In sharing this positive court result I am hopeful it will demonstrate to other victims and the wider public that we will thoroughly investigate all reports of child sex abuse regardless of when the crime took place.”