Azrael's Solution Book Four in the DS Veronica Reason Series

By Jefferson Merrick

Danny Sheridan suffered as a child in the worst imaginable way. He seeks revenge. An opportunity opens up when he rekindles an old flame. She provides him with the catalyst, the spark, the information that he needs to carry out his righteous crusade. He must avoid the police who reluctantly track him down. DS Veronica Reason leads the charge when someone she knows is cut open and left to die on her patch. Danny has one last job to do before he will call it a day. It might be one job too many.

All the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to Gt. Ormond Street Children's Hospital and the NSPCC.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jefferson Merrick
• Release date: Jul 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370170197

Jefferson Merrick

I am a retired airline pilot. I ran an exclusive yacht charter business in my spare time for many years. I am now living and teaching in Thailand. My spare time is busily occupied with writing. Eight books so far, more to follow.

Book preview

Foreword

This work of fiction is depressingly and sadly based on fact. Although it is a work of fiction, all the descriptions of sexual abuse, the photographs, videos, DVDs and the scenes described from such material available on the Internet and by post are based on actual evidential material, recovered by police forces from all over the United Kingdom. The fact that the descriptions are of such depravity and to most minds, utterly disgusting, gave me a tremendous amount of anguish as I wrote them. Some would say that such a book should never have been written, that I am merely profiting from the suffering of the children. I will be accused of producing pornography for profit using paedophilia as my vehicle. For that reason, it might help to explain that all proceeds from this book will be split evenly between the NSPCC and The Children’s Trust.

Please take the time to read the following before you begin to read Azrael’s Solution.

These data are the latest available from the UK Government.

The United Kingdom is the most prominent country of origin for trafficked children – a total of 2,360 reported cases – followed by Vietnam (427), Eritrea (274), Albania (256), Sudan (220), Romania (109), Afghanistan (91), Nigeria (58), Iran (50), Eithiopia (47) and Iraq (46).

In the year to March 2017, 2,255 modern slavery offences were recorded in England and Wales, a 159% increase from the previous period. In the same timeframe, 60 offences were recorded in Scotland and 35 in Northern Ireland.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) report released recently said millions of indecent images of children were in circulation worldwide, and could be accessed from mainstream search engines in just three clicks.

It said that since 2016, British police have been arresting between 400 and 450 people a month for associated offences.

In July, 2014, more than 650 suspected paedophileswere arrested as part of a six-month operation targeting people accessing child abuse images online. The National Crime Agency (NCA) said among the 660 were teachers, medical staff, former police officers, a social services worker and scout leader. More than 400 children have been protected as a result, the agency said. Child protection experts have praised the arrests but warned they were "the tip of the iceberg.

In 2012/13 there were 23,663 recorded sexual offences against children across the whole of the UK. Some 19,112 of those were recorded by police in England and Wales, including 6,296 rapes. Twice as many boys under 13 were raped as were boys under 16.

Ten child sex offenders are spared jail every week by soft judges.

It means nearly half of all guilty paedophiles are let off, many despite crimes spanning decades.

Among 531 perverts to get community sentences or cautions last year were 40 who abused children through porn or forced them into vice.

One man who walked free from court had 29 convictions and another 27 cautions.

In total, of 1,174 paedophiles found guilty in a single year, only 643 were jailed, Ministry of Justice stats show.

MPs accused the Justice Secretary of putting kids at risk as he bids to slash inmate numbers.

Tory Priti Patel said: this shockingly illustrates what’s wrong with our justice system. The priority must be to protect the public from these vile criminals who harm children. The answer is to ensure these prolific offenders are kept behind bars.

She is now the UK Home Secretary but do not expect too much change in the future.

The 43 police forces in England and Wales that released info recorded 23,097 child sex offences in 2011 and is equivalent to 444 attacks a week — or one child abused every 20 minutes. Sadly, these figures have risen dramatically in recent years. Between 2004/5 and 2012/13 the numbers have increased by 23%. It is very likely the figures are now much higher.

I could write a whole book about the statistics but that is not my job. You can Google these appalling facts for yourself.

The next subject is closely related to the above statistics.

Sentencing

There were 49,466 registered sex offenders in the UK as of 31 March 2015, the BBC reported. This number increased to approximately 60,000 as at March of 2018, according to unlock.org.uk. There were 88,106 police recorded sexual offences in the year ending March 2015, an increase of 37 per cent compared with the previous year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Within the overall increase, the number of offences of rape increased by 41 per cent to 29,234 offences, and the number of other sexual offences increased by 35 per cent to 58,872 offences, the ONS said. It seems from anecdotal evidence that the police and prosecutors feel that addition to the Sex Offenders Register is often sufficient punishment for a huge proportion of these cases.

Here are a few of the more lenient cases recorded in recent years. These are real people.

In March 2012, Roger Borton, a married father who downloaded a million indecent images after developing an obsession for collecting child abuse images walked free from court with a 12 month suspended sentence. Borton admitted some of the images were at level 5, the most serious.

In April 2011 a judge sparked fury by freeing a paedophile after saying his 13-year-old victim had seduced him. David Barnes, 24, encouraged the teenager to perform intimate acts while he watched on a webcam, also had images of the most indecent type of child rape on his computer. He walked free with a suspended sentence.

In March 2012, David Reed was convicted of sexually abusing a youngster. He denied wrongdoing but a jury found he abused the girl when she was aged between five and eight. Reed was found guilty of four indecent assaults, four gross indecencies, four sexual assaults and four charges of inciting a youngster aged under 13 to engage in sexual activity. He has been handed a suspended jail term. Let me repeat that; a suspended sentence.

In May 2012 a babysitter who molested a six-year-old boy has been spared a prison sentence. Andrew Filer abused the boy while the youngster’s parents were out in December 2009. Police arrested Filer the next day and he admitted that he had pulled down the boy’s trousers and sexually abused him for about ten minutes

An 89-year-old man who sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl has been spared jail. Dennis Perry was given a six-month community order and forced to sign onto the sex offenders register for five years. Perry held his victim down on a bed, kissing and groping her for about 15 minutes during the attack in 2010

In March 2011 a retired Worcestershire postman who sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl at a holiday park has avoided jail. Malcolm Grogan was given a three-year community order.

In Jan 2011 Suffolk scout troop assistant Ryan Jameson, who took pictures of three children after blindfolding them and tying their hands, has walked free from court after a judge decided he needed help rather than punishment.

William Darcy faced court in May 2012. After three hours’ deliberation, the jury returned a unanimous verdict that he did commit six rapes and 14 offences of gross indecency against the children. D’arcy suffered a two-year supervision order and told to sign the sex offenders’ register for five years.

In June 2011, Simon Hill admitted indecently assaulting a 13-year-old girl in 2003 and sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in 2009. Judge Hart sentenced him to a three-year community order with supervision and a requirement to attend the Thames Valley sex offender programme for 60 days.

In Jan 2012 a paedophile from whom police seized one million inde-cent images of children has been given a suspended jail term. Robert James Barrow, 57, of Plaistow, East London, admitted to making and possessing in-decent images of children. Barrow was sentenced to a 12-month jail term suspended for two years

In July 2011, a man walked free from court, despite pleading guilty to engaging in sexual activity with an 8-year-old girl. Marcin Gamus, 31, was given a three-year community order and ordered to attend a sex offenders’ treatment programme for inappropriately touching the youngster in Streatham. Eight, remember!

In March 2011 a sex offender who sat naked in his car in a busy leisure centre car park masturbating while looking at children has avoided jail. Nick Watts also had 22,000 indecent images of children, of various levels of seriousness. Given a 10-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, after admitting a total of 23 charges.

In Feb 2012 a judge was criticised for failing to jail a pervert who groomed a 14-year-old girl for sex after ruling he was being ‘simply a young man’. Turon Ali, 26, groomed the schoolgirl by sending her explicit text messages and then arranged a secret meeting where he planned to abuse her. But Ali avoided jail with a 12-month suspended sentence after a top judge ruled he was ‘not a paedophile as such’.

October 2011, Gordon Edwards, aged 52, and his twisted brother Ronald, aged 56, were both given suspended jail sentences for a catalogue of vile offences involving girls aged between nine and 14 which took place more than 30 years ago.

July 2011 a paedophile from Faversham who said he viewed 11-year-old girls as ‘young women’ has been handed a community order. Lewis Harris, admitted looking at indecent images when browsing a website designed as a ‘meeting place’ for those with a sexual interest in children.

Judges names are also included in the reports of sexual abuse and the sentences handed down. Here are a few.

In May 2012, a judge took pity on a sex offender and decided sending him to prison would be utterly cruel. Andrew Jackson, 48, twice stalked schoolgirls aged 13 and 14 and attacked a disabled woman he claimed was a prostitute. But Judge Jeremy Richardson QC, allowed him to walk free, saying it would border on cruelty to jail him because he suffers from Asperger’s syndrome.

In 2002, Judge David Paget handed down a suspended sentence to a paedophile who police believe was part of ring that abused hundreds of children over many years. 80-year-old Trevor Mellis was given two years’ probation for taking and distributing images of child abuse. Despite having a string of sexual abuse convictions against children, he never served any time in jail.

In June 1993, Judge Ian Starforth Hill described the 8-year-old victim of attempted rape as ‘not entirely an angel herself’ and gave her attacker two years’ probation.

Judge Sir Harold Cassel QC in 1988, refused to jail an ex-policeman for indecently assaulting his 12-year-old stepdaughter, who had learning difficulties. He said the man was driven to assault the girl because his wife’s pregnancy had dimmed her sexual appetite, causing considerable problems for a healthy young husband. Can you believe that?

You can see from this small sample that to most right-minded citizens, the need to reduce the police population is at odds with upholding and distributing justice. There are many levels of seriousness in the examples above but it seems that even the most serious cases are treated with the same or similar levels of punishment, as are the least serious cases.

Further damming Statistics

Here are some disturbing, cold, hard facts about child sex abuse. Please bear in mind that these numbers are not considered to be 100% accurate but are the results of known and recorded assaults and homicides. We have no idea of the true numbers due to false reporting, misreporting or non-reporting of infant and child deaths.

2016 Figures from the NSPCC website show that four children a week die as a result of abuse or neglect in Great Britain under the so-called ‘care’ of one or both parents or guardians. There is no differentiation regarding birth parents, adoptive parents, or guardians/foster parents. Several deaths are misreported, misunderstood or simply ignored due to ignorance or deliberate oversight.

In 2013, 94,000 children were in care in the UK. 60% of them are there to safeguard them from parental abuse and/or neglect. A small number of these children are further abused whilst in care. Exact numbers are not known but an estimate of 1-3% is not unreasonable. (900-2500)

Only 20-35% of children who have suffered sexual abuse are in care, making the total number of abused children around 260,000.

As of March 31st 2015, there were 49,466 registered sex offenders in the UK who are only able to appeal removal from the register 15 years after leaving prison. This number grows daily.

It is a fact that some, though not all these children, some as young as a few months old, feature in one or more of those mediums available on the Internet.

It is a fact, although unverifiable to what extent exactly, that many other children around the country feature in these mediums without them coming to the notice of anyone other than the people making, distributing or accessing such material. Only 1 in 5 children are abused by a stranger.

It is a fact that only approximately five per cent of the adults, either producers or consumers, involved in this ‘industry’ are ever brought to justice. As you now know, a large proportion of those that do face the courts walk free to serve ‘community service’ or probation.

The categorisation of child pornography and sentencing guidelines for conviction of Possession, Distribution and Production in use in the UK are freely available on line.

The three categories are show here.

Category A

Possession of images involving penetrative sexual activity. Possession of images involving sexual activity with an animal or sadism. Sharing images involving penetrative sexual activity. Sharing images involving sexual activity with an animal or sadism. Creating images involving penetrative sexual activity. Creating images involving sexual activity with an animal or sadism.

Category B

Possession of images involving non-penetrative sexual activity. Sharing of images involving non-penetrative sexual activity. Creating images involving non-penetrative sexual activity.

Category C

Possession of other indecent images not falling within categories A or B. Sharing of other indecent images not falling within categories A or B. Creating other indecent images not falling within categories A or B

Shown below are the sentencing guidelines for the Possession, Distribution and Production of indecent images of children.

Where there is a sufficient prospect of rehabilitation, a community order with a sex offender treatment programme requirement under section 202 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 can be a proper alternative to a short or moderate length custodial sentence.

Possession of Category A: Starting point 1 years custody. Category range 26 weeks’ – 3 years’ custody

Distribution of Category A: Starting point 3 years custody. Starting point 6 years. Custody range 2 – 5 years custody.

Production of Category A: Category range 4 – 9 years custody

We can see that Possession is a lesser offence than Distribution and that in turn is a lesser offence than Production. Some readers might think that these guidelines are unduly lenient. Danny Sheridan is one of them as are some police officers. The pattern is the same for Category B and C.

The sentence for rape is quite specific.

Conviction for rape of a child under 13 carries the Maximum: Life imprisonment. The guidelines indicate 6 to 19 years as appropriate.

Conviction for rape of all others is the Maximum: Life imprisonment. Guidelines indicate 4 – 19 years custody as appropriate.

In 2012/13 there were 6300 rapes of children under 16, evenly divided between boys and girls. These are the paedophiles Danny Sheridan targets, the possessors, the distributors and the producers of the worst kind of child pornography imaginable.

These numbers have grown rapidly and alarmingly since they were published. The 2019 numbers will be close to double the 2012 figures.

Any producer who is actively involved in the filming of such rape or production of any obscene material will be treated as equally culpable of the offence whether they take part in the sexual activity or not. There are many more guidelines and caveats and mitigating factors and extenuating circumstances that a judge must take into consideration when sentencing an offender. The minutiae of these factors will not feature in this book. The Obscene Publications Act was dealt a blow in December 2012 when a gay male escort was charged under the act and acquitted at Southwark Crown Court, the first and only person to plead not guilty to such an offence. However, none of the material in that trial involved anyone under the age of 18.

The Paedophile Crime Unit in New Scotland Yard is a busy as ever.

There are real-life equivalents to Danny Sheridan, or at least those who expose paedophiles with the same end result.

http://ow.ly/GyaW50k8VwD

This work of fiction describes one way of discouraging this ‘industry’.

Azrael’s Solution

Prologue

Very few people are fortunate enough to know exactly when they will die. Timothy James Burrows was not one of the fortunate few. He had less than fourteen hours to live but only Danny Sheridan knew that.

Burrows knew that he was supposed to produce another thirty-minute video tomorrow to supply his many regular customers with yet another episode of the utmost depravity involving an under-age victim. Customers had specific tastes and Burrows’ job was to fulfil those requirements to ensure repeat orders and gain yet more profit. Burrows knew just what to do to make a child in his care do all the things required of them. He now thought of himself as an expert. If persuasion, threats, alcohol or punishment failed, he had access to just enough drugs so that the stars of the show would do pretty well anything that Timothy Burrows and his cameraman, his brother, could dream up. For this, they would make anything from a few thousand to tens of thousands of pounds for each video. Danny Sheridan had embarked on a divinely inspired mission to stop them.

Chapter One

The life-sized face of the dead man hung uncomfortably close before him. It appeared as a printed shroud, a pale silken veil. The veil shimmered in the dim grey and blue light, beyond the image was darkness, all consuming blackness. The pale, watery light glowing on the image mimicked the light of the Northern Lights. The Stygian gloom beyond the image seemed endless, stretching back in time rather than distance. The face showed almost no expression, save a faint hint of surprise on the lifeless visage. The sunken eyes stared back at him, unfocussed, unseeing, dead. The constant liquid drip from the ragged edge of the torn cloth mimicked the drip of blood although the dead man had not been beheaded. There were faint voices, faint yet persistent, in the gloomy shift of time and distance but audibly and evidently troubled or frightened. They were children’s voices, voices of all ages from crawling toddlers to near adult teenagers. Some were high pitched, squeals, even laughs occasionally, sometimes crying quietly, but often screaming. Sometimes they fell silent, silent as the graves in which many of them now uneasily rested. The relentless lament called to him, drawing him into the darkness beyond the dead man’s face. Danny felt uneasy, unwilling and impotent to help the endless number of voices crying out to him, but they drew him on, relentlessly. He held his thin hands in front of him, waxen and bloodless. Pulled now into the vortex of sound, the faceless voices rushed past him as he swept along on a journey to hell. The closeness of the dead man did not bother him in the least. The continuous anguish, the cries, the despairing moans, and the clutching hands of the helpless children savagely tore open his rapidly beating heart. The next thing he knew….

Bzzzzzz! Bzzzzzz! The alarm clock shattered the dream into a hundred confused and disparate fragments, none of which the man in the damp bed could capture save the image of the dead man’s face. That face he now knew well, intimately. He had studied it for many hours in recent weeks. It belonged to his next victim, Paediatric Nurse Timothy Burrows. Danny had etched the indelible image into his subconscious, burned the sneering features into his deepest memory. Danny knew that once he had killed Burrows, it would vanish, just as the other sixteen faces vanished in the past year and a half.

Danny Sheridan silenced the screeching of the alarm, wondering how something so small and cheap could do its job quite so effectively; and then he remembered it was Japanese. He busied himself with getting ready to go to work. His routine never varied, only the time of his rising. His watch showed a little after four-ten. He pulled back the curtain and glanced out of the bedroom window noting the drizzle outside. Blackness. He walked into the small kitchen to heat water on low gas for the tea. He sat on the toilet for five minutes, enjoying the peace and quiet as his digestive system worked its magic. Every morning was the same, without fail, never any drug or preparation to get moving. He stood in the shower for a further five minutes, with ten seconds of ice cold to bring him fully to life.

The water for his tea boiled, whistling its single note until he switched off the gas. He poured the boiling water on the Darjeeling tea-leaves in the small ceramic pot, leaving it to mash for a few minutes. Danny got on with shaving; soaking his face with hot water to soften the beard. Six drops of baby oil mixed with tea tree oil rubbed on the wet stubble provided the lubricant for a close and fragrantly antiseptic shave. Two slices of wholemeal browned in the chromed toaster. He dressed while he drank his tea, sipping the fragrant liquid slowly and savouring every drop. Sitting down at the oak kitchen table to eat the toast and finish his tea, Danny pondered briefly on the events to come that evening.

Danny had done this sixteen times over the past year and a half, each time the same routine. Danny was a firm believer in routine in all he did, getting ready for work, his flying job and in killing paedophiles. He knew he had a generous time-frame tonight. Burrows was also a creature of habit, as Danny discovered on his three visits to watch the routine of his victim. Tonight Burrows was on the ten p.m. ‘til eight a.m. shift at the hospital so he would be home, preparing for work, from about seven onward. Checking his antique Breitling Navitimer, he noted he had thirty-five minutes before his check-in. He donned his uniform jacket, grabbed the padded coat and wrapped himself in the warmth of the fleece. He picked up his small holdall and his flight bag and set off for work.

The short walk to the car did little to raise his spirits. The drizzle felt cold, almost freezing as it swept across the open fields surrounding his lonely home. The distant hedge offered little protection from the easterly wind. Danny’s green Mazda sports car growled and purred as he set off from his quiet farm labourer’s cottage along the narrow lane to the country road ahead. Water squeezed under the tyres as he negotiated the many puddles in the lane. He drove slowly along the lightly rutted road. Once on the tarmac road, he drove with skill and precision, pushing the car into the corners until he hit the main road. There he joined a steady flow of traffic bound for the airport. Parking in the staff car park, Danny took his bags with him to the administration buildings of Centre-Line, the airline he worked for for the previous seven years.

Stansted Airport is a vast, sprawling airport in Essex, home to many airlines operating in the British Isles and Europe. One new airline recently started flights to the US. Danny was hoping to go on a trip soon to New York. Passing the security barrier, he spoke quietly to the guard, greeting him by name. The guard still checked his identity card by swiping it through a reader. The computer registered Danny into the secure building. Going to the Flight Operations centre, he logged into another computer and printed out the Captain’s flight details for the day. He glanced around, locating Nick Harvey, his co-pilot for the next two days.

Hello, Nick. Good to see you again. How are you?

Hello, Danny. Yes, fine. How about you? Ready for thirty minutes in the sun?

God, yes. This weather has been crap for far too long now.

The room hummed with the activity of six crews preparing for an early start. Operations at the airport began at six a.m. in deference to the noise sensitive local population. As many flights as possible left in the first thirty minutes after opening, maximising their time in the air. Nick had arrived earlier than required, a sign of keenness, thought Danny. Everything was prepared, the flight plans, the weather reports for the destination and later for their return to Glasgow. The Notices to Airman or NOTAMS as they knew them lay on the high desk, underneath the weather reports. Tim had highlighted several in yellow felt-tip, the ones that were most relevant to their route south. It just remained for Danny to confirm the amount of fuel Nick suggested for the trip to Madrid. Danny quickly studied the relevant information and concurred with Tim the eight point eight tons was fine. Nick phoned the order for the fuel load to the dispatcher while Danny made a note of the rest of the crew. His senior Flight Attendant, Rosie Jacobson, a Swedish girl he had flown with several times before, headed the list.

Danny smiled to himself as he recalled a night stop they shared about a month ago when they ended up being the only two wanting to eat Indian food that evening. He and Rosie