Derbyshire sexual predator and former school bus driver jailed after abusing teenage victim over several years

Mark Gadsby, of Cross Side in Ashbourne, singled out his teenage victim when he used to drive the school bus and started grooming him by bombarding the victim with text messages while he was attending school, always wanting to meet up.

Gadsby, who was in his 20s at the time of the attacks, would go on to exploit his position of trust over several years. He eventually took his victim to a country lane in Staffordshire and forced him to perform sex acts on several occasions.

He would go on to abuse his victim in other locations including public toilets and even at the Ashbourne house he shared with his mother after she had gone out to go to work. Those sexual acts left the victim physically in pain for weeks afterwards, but Gadsby would continue to attack his underage victim regardless of the impact he was having on him.

“I do get upset about it still and I just think why did he need to do that?” the victim said in a personal statement.

“It’s just the way of how controlling and overpowering and how frightened he made me feel but why would someone want to do that to someone who’s 13-14 years old. He was just a big fat sweaty person, no one else would look at him, at 21 years old he should’ve been going out Friday/Saturday nights and doing whatever he possible could, not targeting a 13-year-old.”

The abuse wasn’t just physical, with Gadsby grooming the victim and threatening to tell others about the abuse, as if the victim were to blame. The victim was forced to live with the impact of the abuse for many years before finally coming forward, ruining his teenage years and continuing into his adult life.

Appearing at Derby Crown Court, Gadsby admitted the charges of one count of buggery, six counts of gross indecency with a boy under sixteen and two indecent images offences after a number of indecent images of children were found on his mobile phone.

The 41-year-old was jailed for a total of six years on Monday, April 3, given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and ordered to sign the Sex Offender’s Register for life.

Detective Constable Matthew Charlesworth led the investigation and said: “Whilst a sentence of six years pales into insignificance compared with the years of trauma the victim has had to live with as a result of Gadsby’s predatory behaviour, we hope that this result will go some way to allowing the victim closure and being able to put the ordeal behind him.

“The victim has been extremely brave, providing detailed accounts to the police and patiently waiting for the investigation and subsequent court proceedings to be finalised. As a result of the victim reporting these offences, which were clearly difficult for him to talk about, a sexual offender is now in prison, protecting children and the wider public from harm”.