A former Olympic swimmer has been sentenced to prison for raping two girls.
On Wed., Feb. 26, Antony James, 35, of Plymouth, England, who competed in the 2012 Olympic Games in London, learned he will spend the next 21 years behind bars after being found guilty of the two rapes as well as other sex crimes, the BBC reports.
Prosecutors said James, who competed in the 100m butterfly in 2012 and was training to become a police officer just before his 2022 arrest, groomed the two girls before raping them, The Guardian reports.
Speaking about James’ first victim, Judge Robert Linford said in court, “You knew what you were doing was seriously wrong but your desire for that young person overtook your self-control,” the BBC reports. “She believed that you two were in a relationship.
“It seems that indeed what had been manufactured was a relationship, but then you betrayed that by raping her in her own home.”
In October, James was convicted of three counts of rape, three of sexual activity with a child and two counts of causing a child to engage in sexual activity, the BBC reports.
He pleaded guilty to six counts of making indecent photographs of a child in April 2024, according to The Guardian.
The crimes took place over a ten-year span, from 2012 to 2022.
James raped one of the girls in her kitchen and the other in a car, prosecutors said, the BBC reports.
“I feel as if my formative teenage years… have been stripped from me,” one of the girls said in the victim impact statement she read in court, according to the BBC.
“I always wonder what kind of girl I would have been if I hadn’t have met you.”
The judge also handed down a 25-year sexual harm prevention order and said James would be placed on the sex offenders registry for life, the BBC reports.
During the sentencing, senior Crown prosecutor Gemma Kneebone said, “James was well aware of how young these victims were,” according to the BBC.
“He set out to take advantage of this in a truly appalling manner, continuing to offend against them after they turned 16.”
Besides competing in the Olympics, James won a silver medal for his country at the Commonwealth Games in 2010.
