A Eastbourne builder and his wife raped two teenage babysitters more than 20 years ago have both been jailed for 13 years.
Paul Stuart, who ran a building business from his home in Eastbourne, pleaded not guilty to raping the two girls in the 1980s.
Stuart, who claimed to be a friend of Australian entertainer Rolf Harris, also denied indecently assaulting one of the girls, four charges of indecently assaulting his other victim and a further charge of witness intimidation.
But he was found guilty of all charges by a jury at Londons Crown Court.
Stuart, who last year moved to Avenue Road, was jailed and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.
It was the second time he had stood trial for raping one of the victims after a jury was unable to reach a verdict in November last year.
Prosecutor Kristina Montgomery said stuart got to know the parents of one of the girls, who also lived in the Eastbourne area, after doing some work on their home.
She occasionally babysat for Stuart and his wife and on one visit to his house Stuart and his wife both called out “Were up here” so she went upstairs into the bedroom where she saw both of them standing naked in the doorway of the en-suite bathroom, fondling one another.
He went towards her, held her and kissed her with his tongue in her mouth as she was “paralysed with shock”.
Stuart then twisted her around, pushed her onto the bed and raped her whilst his wife sat in the corner shoving a toothbrush up her vagina.
Afterwards the girl told no one, but in the years which followed she confided in friends, sought counselling and sent a letter to Paul Stuart
Some years later she told her parents, who wrote anonymous letters to Stuarts neighbours and to Rolf Harris’s agent in 2002 “expressing their concern” – but it was not until 2009 that she went to the police.
Miss Montgomery said that before Stuart’s first trial for raping the girl, his other victim, who had also babysat for him in the 1980s, was asked to give a character reference in which she said nothing untoward had happened to her.
But the mum of a schoolfriend, who had read reports of the trial, remembered the victim crying to her daughter that she’d had sex with Stuart whilst his wife looked on..
When traced by police the victim said she agreed to provide a character reference because Stuart’s wife was threatened her and she had not wanted to upset her – but that Stuart indecently assaulted her at his house when she was 14 or 15, and raped her in the kitchen when she was 16.
In April Stuart threatened her saying “your life is in my hands” and attempted to intimidate her into not co-operating with the police.
Both Stuart and his wife were said to be distraught with the verdict.