A WICKED and depraved child rapist who abused two little girls in Bradford up to 50 years ago has avoided the retribution of a long prison sentence because he is mentally ill.

The judge sentencing Jeremiah Cummins, 75, said he would have died in prison if he had not been diagnosed with vascular dementia and found unfit to stand trial.

Cummins walked free from the dock at Bradford Crown Court today because the only punishment that could be lawfully imposed was an absolute discharge.

White-whiskered Cummins, who walks with the aid of stick, was labelled "degenerate" by Judge Jonathan Rose, who said the sentence would be "no source of comfort" for his two victims.

Cummins began raping the girls when they were under ten years old.

He forced one to drink urine and tried to persuade the other to perform a sex act with a dog.

He raped them in woods in Bradford and at his home, sexually abusing them while giving them piggy-backs.

The first child was aged between eight and 13, and the younger girl aged between five and nine ,when Cummins violated them, taking their virginity and humiliating and degrading them.

"You caused great physical pain to those little girls but that is as nothing compared to the psychological damage inflicted on both and which has lasted throughout their lives.

"These were wicked, selfish and perverted acts of great depravity, which you were able to get away with then, even when you were reported to the police at that time," Judge Rose said.

After two psychiatrists found Cummins unfit to stand trial in September this year, a jury ruled that he had committed all the acts alleged against him, including ten counts of rape and seven of indecent assault against the girls.

One of his victims, now in her mid-50s, told how he raped and indecently assaulted her in Lister Park in Manningham, Bowling Park and in derelict houses in Bierley.

“I would look at the sky and wish it was all over and done with," she said.

The second girl, a decade younger, said Cummins hit her and ordered her to shut up when she screamed and cried as he attacked her.

Cummins, now of Arncliffe Road, Batley, did not accept the jury's findings in the case and objected to the making of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, his barrister, Ian West, told the court.

"The psychiatrists say he has a disability and he has no memory of seeing either of them," Mr West said.

Judge Rose told Cummins: "The consequences of the finding of unfitness to plead, and of the verdicts of the jury, is that the ways in which your case can be dealt with are limited. I cannot by law send you to prison."

Cummins could not be made the subject of a Hospital Order or a supervision order because his condition was not treatable.

"The finding of a disability means that no form of punishment is possible, however much the man who committed these dreadful acts may warrant such punishment and retribution," Judge Rose said.

Otherwise, the judge told him the sentence "would have been measured in years - and a great many at that," meaning Cummings would probably never have been released.

Judge Rose made a Sexual Harm Prevention Order without limit of time and ordered Cummins to sign on the sex offenders' register for five years.

Cummins shouted: "It's a sham," as he left the courtroom.

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