A convicted sex offender has been cleared of abusing another child.

Nigel Collier, aged 62, told a court that he had been driven to attempt suicide by the shame of his crimes against three girls in the past.

But he insisted in his trial that he did not indecently touch a boy over the same period.

A jury at Plymouth Crown Court today unanimously acquitted Collier of three counts of sexual assault against the child between 2012 and 2017.

Collier, formerly of Plymouth, was released as a free man after serving two years in jail after his conviction in 2017.

Judge James Townsend thanked the jury and agreed that the court would pay the cost of travelling from his new home in Redruth over the three-day trial.

The boy came forward to police to complain of being sexually abused more than a year after Collier was convicted of sexually assaulting the three girls.

Nigel Collier outside Plymouth Crown Court, where he is accused of sexually abusing a boy
Nigel Collier outside Plymouth Crown Court, where he has been cleared of sexually abusing a boy

The former care and factory worker had admitted those offences.

The boy told police that Collier had bribed him with chocolate and threatened to kill his family if he told anybody.

Collier repeatedly denied touching the boy indecently, nor making any threats.

He told the jury: “I am not a violent man.”

Collier also denied bribing the child, who cannot be identified in any way for legal reasons, with chocolate.

He spoke at length from the witness stand about his feelings at the time of the offences towards the girls.

Collier said that previously he had seen paedophiles on the news and told his ex-wife that they should be killed by lethal injection.

Collier said: “And then I am classed as a paedophile.”

He added: “This (the offences against the girls) will haunt me for the rest of my life. My shame and my guilt stays with me every day.”

Collier accepted that he was likely to have caused the girls ‘irreparable damage’.

He added that he had attempted suicide three times while on bail for those offences.

The trial started on Tuesday as Britain entered another lockdown, with courts remaining open across the country.