Robert Gould trial - how prosecutors used testimony from a victim who died 11 years ago to snare Rushden's most prolific paedophile

As they began to look further, they realised he wasn’t the first victim to come forward.

Robert Gould was just 22 when he committed his first known offence in 1972, when he assaulted a ten-year-old boy in a classroom at South End Juniors.

Police believed that the man they’d spoken to could not be the only one. They approached the Crown Prosecution Service from the earliest stages of their investigation to help them begin building a case against Gould, who by then was aged 71.

They found he’d been convicted of abusing five boys in 1988. They found a report of rape and ongoing abuse by him from 1987 in a different police force. They started to contact classmates of those who had made the initial reports and found a cascade of abuse spanning 16 years at South End Juniors, as well as three victims unconnected to the school.

They also found that another man, Witness L, who had reported Gould to doctors, psychiatrists and a solicitor over many years.

Because of the desperately troubled life he’d lived, he’d also come into contact with police officers numerous times over the years. One gave evidence at the trial, telling the jury that Witness L had told him that he’d suffered abuse.

Witness L had also phoned police in 2006 to report the abuse but had never got as far as making a formal statement.

Gould’s defence was that the men had somehow got together in 2021 to collude and come up with allegations that would see them win compensation.

So Witness L’s evidence became vitally important – he’d reported the abuse way before 2021.

But in 2013, he had tragically died.

The Crown Prosecution Service knew that the jury had to hear his evidence to help convince them of Gould’s guilt.

Including evidence of offences committed against a victim who has died is unusual, as the victim cannot give evidence in court. However, the CPS successfully applied to His Honour Judge David Herbert to have Witness L’s testimony heard by the jury as hearsay evidence.

The evidence of another victim, Witness N, who reported Gould’s abuse in the 1980s was also extremely important to the case. Although police had been informed at the time, they didn’t prosecute because the boy’s allegations were not deemed to be ‘corroborated.’

The CPS knew that although the allegations had not resulted in charges at the time, this was not a barrier to them being heard.

Witness N agreed to support the trial and the CPS reinstated this victim’s allegations as part of the case.

Thankfully, the police force involved had kept details of the allegations as well as interview tapes from when Gould had been arrested in 1987. Included in those tapes were contradictions that helped lead to Gould’s downfall as he was questioned on them in court, four decades later.

The task for the prosecution was to prove to a jury that the offences had happened, not specifically where and when. The defendant denied any suggestion of abuse.

The strongest evidence was the accounts of each individual victim, describing similar, escalating patterns of abuse. The prosecution’s case was that these men could not have been mistaken about what had happened in their childhood and they could not have made up a story together.

In selecting the most appropriate charges, the CPS had to consider prolific and repeated offending. To help the jury understand the full extent of Gould’s abuse, the CPS used what is known as specimen charges. These tell the jury the same offence has happened repeatedly, so they don’t have to come to a verdict on each specific incident.

The comprehensive case for the prosecution was made possible by a strong partnership between the police investigation and the prosecutor in the case.

From an early stage the prosecutor gave legal advice to the investigation, identifying the lines of enquiry that could support a prosecution and advising how a strong case could be built. In turn, the police worked tirelessly to follow these lines of enquiry and secure the evidence from the victims to prosecute Gould for the full extent of his crimes.

Gould was tried at Northampton Crown Court and yesterday (Monday, January 27) was convicted of 29 offences – one of buggery, 27 of indecent assault and one of indecency against a male child – relating to all 14 victims.

Emma Cornell from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “Robert Gould passed himself off as a respectable primary school teacher and church volunteer. Behind the outwardly respectable mask, he was a paedophile and a predator, constantly abusing boys in his care and seeking to commit increasingly serious sexual offences.

“Gould’s 16-year campaign of abuse wrecked the lives of these 14 people. They have come forward now and told their story and I hope that seeing their abuser revealed for what he truly is will be of comfort to them and help them rebuild their lives.

“Today is about justice for the men who survived Gould’s abuse as children and for the family of the young man who passed away in 2013. Our message is simple. Abuse is abuse and regardless of how long ago it happened, please come forward and report it. Just as the CPS and the police have worked closely together in this case, we will continue to do everything we can as a partnership to bring people who have committed these vile offences to justice.”

Gould will be sentenced next month.