FORMER neighbours of paedophile foster carer Patrick Gallagher have spoken out after his jailing for child sex abuse.
The Post reported yesterday how Gallagher, 60, of Bolsover Street, Mansfield, sexually abused at least 16 boys between 1998 and 2010.
He was given 13 life sentences at Nottingham Crown Court and will have to serve at least 28 years before he is eligible for parole.
Yesterday, mum-of-one Rebecca Verhees, 20, who was visiting friends in Bolsover Street, said: "It scares me. They should do better checks. My son has been out and around down this road. It's horrible to think he [Gallagher] was about."
Window-cleaner David Charlton, 27, who has lived in Bolsover Street for a year, said: "I used to clean his windows. He seemed an ordinary bloke. His house got burgled about eight weeks ago. Some people got in through the back door and were taking stuff out."
A 23-year-old man, who did not want to be named but who was visiting his grandmother in Bolsover Street, said: "I've known him since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. It's a wake-up call. You do not know who to trust."
Yesterday, a sign in a downstairs window of the two-storey terraced house where Gallagher lived read: "This house and contents does not belong to Pat or family of Gallagher."
A 27-year-old mum-of-two, who did not want to be named, said: "I've seen his daughter coming and going and clearing things out. I feel bad for his family."
Gallagher's offences were discovered when one of his victims went to police after the death of his wife, Ann, last November. Gallagher had committed one offence while his dying wife was lying in a bed in the same room and even carried out abuse on the day of her funeral.
The couple had cared for children from 1982 to 2006, until a boy in their care caught Gallagher watching pornography in 2006. A subsequent Notts County Council probe led to him being de-registered as a foster carer in January 2007.
The council is carrying out an inquiry into how one of its foster carers was able to abuse 16 boys over 12 years.
Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said Gallagher's offending should have been identified sooner.
"What comes across in this whole, incredibly tragic affair is a systematic failure to recognise how dangerous some of these individuals are," said Mr Saunders.
"There are so many people in society who just dismiss or trivialise people who assault children, or trivialise a crime or trivialise an act.
"There are clearly still people in the system who need to be educated about the way perpetrators operate."
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