Les Merton is a convicted child-abuser from Medlyn Moor, Cornwall, England, UK, subsequently living in Redruth before his 2015 conviction.[1] Educated at Halwin School, and employed in various ways in his life, he has written in a range of genres including humour and Cornish dialect.[2]
In 2002 he founded Poetry Cornwall / Bardhonyaeth Kernow,[3] of which he remains the editor. In the same year his poem "Gud News" won the Cornish Gorsedd,[4] and in 2004 he was made a bard of that organisation for his services to Cornish literature,[2] which have been described as "new investigations of Cornish experience".[5] His bardic name is Map Hallow (Son of the Moors).[2] His guide to the Cornish dialect entitled Oall Rite Me Ansum?: a salute to Cornish Dialect was published in 2003.[1][6]
In 2005 Merton accepted a police caution for entering his credit card details into a website hosting indecent images of children, but had claimed that this was a mistake which happened whilst carrying out research into the Russian mystic, Rasputin.[7]
In January 2015, Merton was found guilty and jailed for 13 years for child sex abuse which was carried out on girls as young as seven and over a period of over 20 years.[8]
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