ICE CREAM SEX BEAST ‘GROOMED ME’ IN BACK OF HIS VAN

Man tells cops sick paedo Wright assaulted him when he was 14 afterSunday World exposes sordid past

A Convicted PAEDOPHILE ice cream man is being investigated by gardai after a serious sex allegation was made against him, following an exposé in last week’s Sunday World.

A man has come forward claiming he was groomed for abuse by convicted sex offender Stephen Wright. The abuse is alleged to have centred on Wright’s ‘Mr Greedy’ ice cream van, which he drove around the streets of inner-city Dublin for more than 10 years until last weekend.

The child sex offender is believed to have quit the trade within hours of our revelations. These exclusive pictures show one of his ice cream vans being taken to the scrapyard after Wright crashed it into a wall to prove that he was leaving the business. The wicked pervert begged us not to expose his sordid past and offered to allow himself to be monitored by gardai if we kept him out of the paper.

Following our exposé, the 60-year-old Belfast-born pervert and his gay lover Philip Gibney fled their apartment in Finglas and are believed to be in Northern Ireland. However, Wright faces being arrested on sight by the PSNI after he refused to sign the sex offenders’ register, which was part of his bail conditions for a case in which he admitted sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy he had lured into his ice cream van with the promise of work.

Wright is now the subject of a garda probe after a 25-year-old man went to Terenure garda station last Monday and made a complaint of a serious sexual nature against him. The man came forward after reading the Sunday World exposé and told gardai that he had been sexually assaulted by Wright when he worked for him between the ages of 14 and 16.

He also supplied the names of at least two other men he also believes were victims of the sick businessman. Detectives are now trying to track down Wright and any other alleged victims to investigate the claims. The Sunday World has also learned that Wright was heavily involved in underage discos in various large venues in Dublin from 2000 onwards.

The story of Wright’s latest alleged victim is very similar to the case he was convicted for. The Belfast-born father-of-two admitted in court that he met a 14-year-old while out selling ice cream and offered the child the chance to make a bit of pocket money by working in his van.

He went back later in the day to take the youngster on his round and brought him to a service station. He began talking to his victim about the Parliament Bar in Belfast, which is a well-known gay bar. When his helper began to change clothes, Wright pounced and began to put his hand up and down the terrified child’s thigh in a bid to have sex with him. The 14-year-old managed to flee and ran to the service station to tell staff that he had been sexually assaulted.

Police were called and Wright was arrested nearby. He appeared in Newtownabbey Magistrates Court in the summer of 1998 and pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting the young lad. He said he was only pleading guilty to spare the boy the ordeal of having to give evidence. He was fined £250, bound over to keep the peace for three years and had his name added to the register of sexual
offenders.

However, despite remaining in Belfast for a year after his conviction, he refused to sign the register because he “didn’t agree with it”.

He met his partner, Dublin-born Philip Gibney, in Belfast shortly after his conviction and the pair moved to the capital. They developed an ice cream business together and own at least three vans. The pair operated around Dublin and are well known in the north and south inner city.

Customers were shocked to read about Wright’s shameful past and the pervert knows he will never be able to work in Dublin again. When we confronted him, he said “you will get me shot” before speeding off in panic. He and Gibney then made repeated efforts to try to keep the pervert out of the paper. There is no suggestion that Philip Gibney is a sex offender.

Both Wright and Gibney drove ice cream vans and our undercover surveillance team watched Wright laugh and joke with innocent kids, who were unaware he was hiding a dark secret. Wright has pocketed a small fortune selling ice cream to unsuspecting children and their oblivious parents.