‘Nowhere to hide’ for fugitive pervert

Nov 6 2007 by Urmee Khan, The Journal

FUGITIVE paedophile Ronald Heron has been arrested after 10 months on the run.

The former school teacher was arrested at Heathrow airport at 8am on Saturday, after arriving from Manila. He was yesterday escorted back to Tyneside by Northumbria Police.

Heron, 58, sexually abused four Northumberland children between the ages of 11 and 14 during the 1970s and 1980s. His trial at Newcastle Crown Court last January was half way through when he fled, using his own passport which had not been confiscated while he was on bail, via Durham Tees Valley airport to his wife’s home town in Philippines.

The trial continued in his absence and Heron, formerly of Stakeford, near Ashington, was found guilty in his absence of one count of serious sexual assault, one of attempted sexual assault and 10 of indecent assault on three boys and a girl. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.

His arrest at Heathrow was prearranged following negotiations with police, officers confirmed last night.

Det Chief Insp Max Black, head of Northumbria Police Public Protection Unit, said: “These were vile, publicly-condemned offences, and it shows there’s no hiding place for those who carry out these crimes and attempt to evade justice.

“He was recaptured after lengthy negotiations between the Northumberland area command PPU and himself, which led to him surrendering on his return from abroad.”

Heron will now serve his full jail term.

At the time, Judge Tim Hewitt said: “He is presently a fugitive from justice. My experiences are that the arm of the law is very long, and fugitives who have escaped justice normally don’t escape it for very long.”

During the two-week trial in Newcastle Crown Court in January, it emerged that Heron would take the children for rides in his Rolls-Royce and his plane which was based at Eshott Airfield near Morpeth.

During the course of his evidence, Heron, admitted having three-in-a-bed sex with one of his victims, but claimed this was only after the boy was 18.

The jury found him guilty of sexually abusing the boy when he was years younger.

Heron started receiving threats in the 1980s when he worked as an insurance salesman in Cumbria from the father of one of the victims, who said he knew what the former teacher had done.

But Heron was only arrested last year, after one of the victims, suffering from relationship difficulties which he blamed on the sexual abuse, went to the police.

A Crown Prosecution Service spokeswoman said there was no reason for Heron to be made to surrender his passport.

“He had been on unconditional bail throughout. He was in employment, had ties in the community and residence in the community.

“There was nothing in law that would have given any grounds for the removal of his passport. No-one had any reason to believe that he would not turn up.”