Paedo released early is living in £1,700-a-week care home on English Riviera

Police launch probe after

A JAILED paedophile pensioner has been moved to a care home on the English Riviera costing up to £1,700 a week.

And Ronald Atkinson, 78, has been visited in his taxpayer-funded private room by two other convicted child-sex perverts, according to a horrified source.

Elderly residents who welcome their grandchildren were unaware of the vile history of their new member and his twisted friends.

The Government watchdog the Care Quality Commission also had no idea that Atkinson had been moved to the luxury home in Torbay, Devon, halfway through an 11-year jail sentence for rape and gross indecency.

Last night, after the worried source had alerted us, police were investigating possible breaches of Atkinson’s parole licence.

Our source said: “I was shocked when I found out they were taking Ronald Atkinson as a resident because I read up about what he had done and obviously many of the residents are grandparents who have children coming to visit them.

“I assumed there would be increased security around him but there was nothing of the sort. The external doors just operated with a push button door release with a big green button.

“He had a phone too. Normally paedophiles on licence aren’t supposed to have them in case they access the internet.”

Atkinson was jailed for 11 years in August 2011 after he admitted charges of rape, gross indecency and indecent assault on two girls aged under 16 some 30 years apart in his home town of Plymouth.

Groomed

In December, after medical problems, he was transferred from Category C prison Channings Wood, near Newton Abbot, Devon, to the specialist care home in the greater Torbay area.

Our source came forward after being outraged that Atkinson was said to have been visited in the home two other notorious child abusers.

The source claims one is Jake Ormerod, 24, who was jailed for 10 years in 2011 for a series of sex attacks on eight girls under 15 whom he had groomed on social media and then plied with drugs and booze. His offences came to light during Operation Mansfield, a police investigation into a suspected paedophile ring in the area. His sentence was reduced in 2012 to seven years by three of the country’s top judges. It meant Ormerod was entitled to automatic release after three-and-a-half years. Our source said the other alleged visitor was Anthony Cross, 69, who has been repeatedly jailed for serial sex attacks on young boys and girls, dating back to 1965. Our source said: “They had both served time for child sexual offences. I was shocked. “I can only guess at what subjects they discuss in Atkinson’s room but I bet it isn’t world politics. “What worries me is that they do get a lot of young children coming in to visit their grandparents. “How can the authorities be so stupid and take such risks with vulnerable kids? It makes me furious. Something should be done.” The owner of the care home, which we are not naming for the safety of the other residents, claimed that a risk assessment had been done before they took on Atkinson as part of a contract drawn up with the local council. He admitted that