A PREDATORY paedophile from Plymouth who manipulated a vulnerable young girl into a life of "rape, filth and humiliation" has had his jail term cut on appeal.
Colin Clive Goss, 78, hid the girl in the boot of his car after she fled a care home, before effectively becoming her pimp, London's Criminal Appeal Court heard.
The sick pensioner encouraged her to have sex with other men whilst he looked on, then began to regularly rape her himself.
She made several attempt to bring what was happening to the attention of the authorities.
And those missed chances to stop Goss in his tracks were today condemned by top judge, Sir Brian Leveson.
Goss, of Stuart Road, was finally jailed for 18 years at Plymouth Crown Court on June 20 last year.
He pleaded guilty to a raft of sex offences against the girl, including three rapes and a count of aiding and abetting rape.
Today Sir Brian, Mr Justice Sweeney and Judge David Griffith Jones, reduced Goss's 18-year term of 16 years.
The court heard that the girl was subject to horrific "predatory sexual offending" at the hands of Goss after absconding from care repeatedly in the 1990s.
Several times after returning to care, she tried to tell adults about her ordeal.
She even recorded "confessions" from Goss, but he was not arrested and charged until a decade later, when she presented a dictaphone recording of his admissions.
Speaking of her suffering, the victim said she had "lost the goodness of heart from her life" and been left with only "filth and humiliation."
Sir Brian observed: "It is a very real concern that so many opportunities to bring this offender to book were missed.
"If ever there was a case in which the significance of taking allegations of sex crime seriously was evident, then this is it."
Lawyers for Goss argued that his sentence was far too long and that he should have been given a greater reward for admitting his crimes.
Allowing the appeal, Sir Brian said: "The judge was not permitted to increase the sentence by reducing the discount for pleading guilty, because he didn't admit his guilt earlier than he did".
Read next: Shark tears whale apart off the coast of Cornwall