The chief surveyor for London’s Tower Hamlets Coun

The chief surveyor for London’s Tower Hamlets Council was
jailed for five years today Monday for a terrifying knifepoint
sex attack on a schoolgirl.

Father of three Alan Brooks – disguised with sunglasses,
baseball hat and a duster round his face – grabbed his 16-year-old
victim at a bus stop and dragged her into bushes, Snaresbrook Crown
Court was told.

Brooks, 49, of Mawney Road, Romford, Essex, pleaded
guilty to indecent assault and kidnap on the Bank Holiday Monday on
August 26 last year.

Brooks, who was jailed for a similar attack 20 years ago, was
suspended from his senior pnds stlg 25,000 a year post with the
council after his arrest.

Passing sentence Judge Geoffrey Rucker said: ‘In 1970 you were
convicted by a jury of having an offensive weapon and indecent
assault.

The facts of that case were that you held a woman at
knifepoint, took her to your car and indecently assaulted her.

‘
The judge said that in 1989 he was fined by magistrates after he
was arrested in woods near nurses’ accommodation at Whipps Cross
Hospital, Leyton, East London, armed with a Jiff lemon bottle
containing ammonia.

Judge Rucker asked rhetorically: ‘Was that a mere
coincidence or was there a purpose behind it?’
On the August Bank Holiday, disguised and armed with a knife,
he dragged the defenceless and terrified girl into bushes and
indecently assaulted her.

The judge told him: ‘You held that knife to her throat and
later to her body.

It goes without saying that she was very,
very frightened.

‘At one point when she tried to escape you flung her to the
ground.

You then made repellant sexual advances.

‘I accept that your plight brings great hardship on your family
and children.

‘But I have a public duty to deter other people from behaving
like this.

‘
He sentenced Brooks to five years jail concurrent on each
charge he admitted.

Brooks showed no emotion and glanced at his smartly dressed wife
sitting in the public gallery as he was led away.

The court heard how on the afternoon of August 26 last year the
youngster waited alone at a bus stop in Aldersbrook Road, Leytonstone,
for friends to arrive.

Wearing his disguise and brandishing a carving knife, Brooks
forced the teenager into some nearby bushes.

There he pushed the blade against her and removed the girl’s
trousers and knickers before indecently assaulting her.

But when Brooks eventually led her back towards the road, her
friends arrived on a bus and rushed to her aid.

Brooks was chased at first by some of the youngsters and police
who were called arrested him in Aldersbrook Road.

During interviews at Ilford Police Station he totally denied
the allegations but strong forensic evidence in relation to
clothing found on the scene led to Brooks pleading guilty at the
last minute.

Mr Peter Woodall, defending, said: ‘He is overwhelmed with
shame for himself and for what he has put his family through.

He feels
biting shame for what he put the girl through.

‘
ENDS
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