Whiting 'tried to kill his father'

Roy Whiting's elderly father is a convicted paedophile who also abused his son, it was claimed today.

George Whiting, now 72, allegedly sexually abused a young girl at his local swimming pool in Sussex when he was 36, the age at which Roy molested his first victim. Former sheet metal worker Whiting assaulted an 11-year-old girl during a trip to Crawley swimming pool with his sons Roy, then seven, and his elder brother Peter, according to a report in the Mirror.

The child told police Whiting grabbed her as she was swimming with a schoolfriend, pulled her towards him and assaulted her, it is claimed.

A local newspaper from 1965 reported how Whiting was put on probation for one year for the incident, which he - like his son almost 30 years later - initially denied before making a full confession, it is alleged.

After the incident Whiting's marriage to Pamela, the mother of Roy and his two siblings, disintegrated and she moved away from the family home in the Crawley suburb of Langley Green.

In a twist which mirrors the classic cycle of the abused becoming the abuser, Roy Whiting allegedly claims that he, too, suffered sexual abuse at his father's hands.

As revealed in the Evening Standard yesterday, his allegations were referred to by Whiting's lawyer during his sentencing in 1995 for the abduction and indecent assault on a nine-year-old girl. Philip Marshall told the judge of an incident in Whiting's past which "obliged (Whiting) through a need for self-defence in a way to draw down a conscious barrier."

Details of the allegation are not known but it is claimed that Whiting was so angry with his father he cut the brakes on his car, resulting in an accident near a local shopping centre when George Whiting's car crashed over a roundabout and into a pedestrian area.

Whiting's schoolfriend Ian Hodder, 42, told the Mirror: "I remember the crash because my sister was walking along the pavement when the car came flying past. Everybody thought it was just an accident but years later Roy told the police he tried to murder his father.

"He told them he had tampered with the brakes. Roy told them it was because of what his father had done to him. Nobody really knows what went on behind closed doors. Roy never spoke about it."

Whiting used the claims in an attempt to shift the blame in 1995, when he grabbed the nine-year-old girl off a Crawley street, drove her away and assaulted her.

The girl is now 15. Her parents, who attended every day of the Sarah Payne trial, have spoken of their relief that the "totally evil" man is now behind bars.

The girl's father said: "Whiting is a bastard but he's a clever bastard. At times I had to hold myself back because I felt myself going for him as he sat in the dock."

Linda Booker, Whiting's former wife, was left pregnant with their baby son when he walked out nine months after their marriage in 1986.

She has not spoken to the media about the Sarah Payne case but one of her friends said: "Her world was ripped apart by it. It makes her cringe to think about him now."

Whiting's 30-year-old ex-girlfriend and mother of his secret 12-year-old daughter, told the Sun how Whiting leered at schoolgirls during their relationship, and had sex with her when she was asleep. A cellmate in Highdown Prison, Surrey, where Whiting was held before his trial, claims Whiting told him he thought children should be tattooed with "Mum" or "Dad" to show that they belonged to somebody.

He had complete contempt for Sarah Payne's parents even when he saw them in court, he told the cellmate. Asked if he had seen the family at an earlier hearing, Whiting had replied: " Yes, they were behind me and I don't give a f*** for them - they are the ones who put me here."