A former Church of England vicar could face a life sentence next week when he is due to be sentenced for child sex abuse for a third time.
Ifor Whittaker, 80, formerly known as Colin Pritchard, admitted raping a young boy and gross indecency in the vestry of St John the Baptist Church, Sedlescombe.
The offences took place in the East Sussex village in the 1990s when he was serving as a priest under his previous name.
He is already serving a 16-year-sentence after he was convicted at a trial in 2018 of abusing a boy from 1987 to 1991.
And he was previously jailed for five years in 2008 for the abuse of two children in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, from 1979 to 1983.
At Hove Crown Court today (Tuesday 12 November), Judge Gary Lucie adjourned the sentencing hearing to consider the length of the jail term.
Judge Lucie said: “This is a very serious case. It’s life or a very long sentence. I need to work my way through all of that.”
The court heard that Whittaker had baptised the boy but later went on to abuse him in the church.
Beverly Cripps, prosecuting, said that the victim had told police that he was terrified during the attack and that he had tried to bury the memories of what had happened to him.
Despite that, “it had come back to him in pieces over the years.”
The sentencing hearing has been adjourned until next Tuesday (19 November).
