THE MOTHER of a young girl abused by a convicted paedophile has spoken of how he earned her trust before abusing her daughter.

The Westcliff mum, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she had no idea 52-year-old shopkeeper Davy Nicholls had been abusing her now 13-yearold daughter over a period of two years, until she was contacted by police.

Nicholls, of Manor Road, Westcliff, had been caught by a customer who noticed an indecent photograph on his computer at his shop in London Road, Westcliff, in November, which police later identified as the woman’s daughter via the school she attended.

She said: “He befriended our entire family and we trusted him implicitly.

“It’s had a devastating effect on all of us, I can’t begin to describe what we feel, it was just complete and utter shock because we thought of him as such as good friend.

“He abused all our trusts, not just my daughter’s, and to be told he was on the Sex Offenders’ Register was just unreal. If we had even the slightest inkling, we wouldn’t have let him anywhere near my daughter.

“Even looking back, there weren’t any tell-tale signs, which is something that has frustrated us so much. You worry so much about what your children are doing online and making sure they don’t talk to strange people, but this wasn’t a stranger.”

She added her daughter had struggled to come to terms with the abuse she had suffered, but said it now appeared Nicholls had begun preying on her almost as soon as he was released early on licence from a four-and-a-half year prison sentence for similar offences.

She said: “My little girl isn’t saying an awful lot. She won’t open up about it, so we’re not 100 per cent certain when this even started, but it seems to have been sometime in 2012, meaning he was on licence at that time.

“But the first thing we knew was the phone call we received the police to tell us someone had seen a photo of our daughter on his premises and reported it to them.

“We can’t even begin to imagine the sort of things he said to her to stop her from telling us anything.”

Nicholls was sentenced to 15 years in prison when he appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court on Wednesday and will serve at least ten until he can be considered to be released on licence.

He had previously been sentenced to four-and-a-half years in 2009 after abusing a 12-yearold girl over six months the previous year.