A FORMER racehorse transport boss has been convicted of six indecency offences against two schoolgirls.
James Ratcliffe, 68, was cleared by a jury at Ipswich Crown Court on four further charges.
Ratcliffe, of Laceys Lane, had pleaded not guilty to ten charges of indecently assaulting a female after two girls made allegations against him. The offence
s were said to have taken place a decade ago.
It took the jury sitting at Ipswich Crown Court a day and a half to reach their verdicts.
Judge John Devaux told Ratcliffe that he would be sentenced later this month.
During the trial, Ratcliffe had told the court that he had visited the girls' house near Newmarket twice or three times a week to see their mother for sex.
Giving evidence, he denied having ever been alone with either girl and said it was entirely untrue that he had ever touched the girls indecently.
While he did have a key to the house for about six months, Ratcliffe said he had never let himself into the property. He said that whenever he was at the house there were always other adults present.
Responding to allegations made by the girls that he indecently assaulted them on a number of occasions, Ratcliffe told the jury: "They say that. It didn't happen".
Ratcliffe said he believed the allegations had been made in an attempt to get back at the girl's mother through him.
One of the girls – now an adult but who cannot be named for legal reasons – told the court that the "groping" had begun when she was aged nine or ten.
Claims by defence barrister Charles Myatt that she had been resentful of the time that Ratcliffe had spent with her mother were untrue, she said, although she admitted that their mother had given them little attention.
The woman, who gave evidence via a video link, also denied an allegation that she had told a relative that she would "get her own back one day" on Ratcliffe.
When Ratcliffe had called at the family home he had touched her, although at first she had not appreciated what was happening.
She told the jury: "At the time I didn't think it was groping. It just seemed like cuddles but it got uncomfortable".
Both alleged victims had gone to Suffolk police in January last year to lodge formal complaints about Ratcliffe
