By Calvin Palmer
A former royal butler in the service of The Queen and Queen Mother has been jailed for a minimum of six years after he admitted a series of sex offenses against boys.
Paul Kidd, 55, of Stalybridge, Greater Manchester, pleaded guilty to charges including indecent assault and sexual activity with a child.
Police described Kidd as a “brilliant groomer” and even took one of his victims for tea with the Queen Mother.
Kidd started grooming one of the boys when he was aged 12 and another when he was aged 14, Manchester Crown Court was told.
Kidd was senior footman to the Queen Mother from 1979 to 1984 and previously worked as a royal butler to The Queen from 1977.
The offences against the boys were committed between 1974 and 1977, 1981 and 1983 – when he was in the employ of the Queen Mother – and 2005 to 2008.
Judge Mushtaq Khokhar told him: “You were someone who had influenced your victims to such an extent they were under your spell. They would do anything you asked them to do.
“I regard you as someone who is dangerous and presents a risk to all the young people you may come across.”
He gave Kidd an indeterminate sentence and recommended that he remain in prison for at least six years for public protection until he could be considered for parole.
Kidd was caught after one of his victims saw him boasting about working for the Queen and Queen Mother in a Manchester Evening News interview for the 10th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death.
A victim, now in his 40s, saw the article and complained to police that he had been abused between the ages of 13 and 16 during the early 1980s.
When police raided Kidd’s Kidd’s home on Grasscroft Road, Stalybridge and found nearly 19,000 indecent images of children on his computer and indecent videos locked in a safe.
Some of those images featured sexual abuse of a second victim who was traced by detectives. Now aged 18, this victim told police he had been abused not only by Kidd but a second man, David Hobday, when he was aged 14.
And when Kidd was charged, a third victim came forward. He told police he had met Kidd through a shared interest in CB radio and had been abused in the late 1970s. He told investigators he was taken, as a teenager, to the Queen Mother’s Christmas party and introduced to her as a friend over tea.
Kidd previously admitted 29 offenses. These included nine offenses of indecent assault on a boy under 16, three counts of sexual activity with a boy under 16, three counts of sexual activity with a boy under 16, causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, 11 counts of making indecent photographs of a child and two charges of possessing indecent photographs of children.
Kidd’s co-accused David Hobday, 57, of St John’s Street, Dukinfield, was jailed for three years after admitting abusing one of the victims.
[Based on reports by The Times, BBC News and Manchester Evening News.]
