A churchgoer who confessed that sexually assaulting children gave him “an electric shock of excitement” has been jailed again for abusing young girls.
Timothy Thrasher, 40, a devout Christian who worshipped at a bible-teaching chapel in York, was originally jailed for three years in August 2024 for sexually abusing children, one of whom was extremely young.
Prosecutor Eleanor Mitten said that while in prison for those offences, Thrasher recently contacted police and confessed that he had committed yet more sexual offences against children.
Thrasher, formerly of Breighton, near Selby, was due to be released from his original jail sentence in February, but he was back in the dock at York Crown Court yesterday (2 April) after confessing to three more offences including sexual assault by penetration of a very young child and two other counts of sexual assault against girls under 13 years of age.
Those offences occurred between 2009 and the summer of 2023.
It’s understood that Thrasher’s religious devotion compelled him to confess to the new offences without the police and prosecuting authorities being aware of them.
Thrasher, who was married and living in the Selby area at the time of his arrest for the initial offences in the summer of 2023, received the three-year jail sentence the following year for offences including six counts of sexual assault, two counts of voyeurism and one count of attempting to operate equipment underneath the clothing of another person – more commonly known as “upskirting”.
He also covertly recorded two females doing private acts.
In that case, he was again condemned by his own admissions after apparently being overwhelmed by guilt for his egregious offences.
Thrasher, formerly of Clay Lane, Breighton, was arrested in July 2023 after he told a church friend that he had sexually assaulted a young girl which gave him a “shock of erotic excitement”.
Thrasher – who worshipped at Calvary Chapel, a bible-teaching church on Barbican Road – admitted that he had sexually assaulted the same teenage girl two years previously and three times in total.
Katherine Robinson, prosecuting at the 2024 hearing, said that Thrasher had admitted that he “felt a shock of excitement when he (sexually assaulted the girl) and a mixture of erotic excitement and shame and guilt”.
“He said he felt shame and told God that he would not be happy again,” she added.
He admitted sexually assaulting other young females including two other teenage girls between 2015 and 2020, on one occasion while giving the girl a hug. One girl was sexually assaulted way back in 2006.
In his original email confession, Thrasher also admitted trying to covertly film two females doing private acts such as getting changed between 2008 and 2012 and trying to take an “upskirt” photo of another girl in 2020.
One of the victims, none of whom can be named for legal reasons, spoke of the “devastation” and “sheer mental toll” that Thrasher’s wicked actions had had upon her which had left her an “emotional wreck”.
Defence barrister Eddison Flint, representing Thrasher at yesterday’s hearing, said that, perhaps uniquely, Thrasher was being prosecuted on his confession alone because the authorities were not aware of the new matters.
He said that when Thrasher was jailed in 2024, he worked as a chapel orderly at Risley Prison in Cheshire where he also worked in the education department. He had since been transferred to Hull Prison where he worked as a cleaner.
Judge Sean Morris, who jailed Thrasher in 2024, told the disgraced churchman: “It’s quite clear you do have an interest sexually in very young children.
“These are offences that you yourself called in to the police…to confess. I have never across that before and you made full and frank admissions to what you had done and that was born out of genuine remorse.”
Thrasher was jailed for seven years and was told he must serve at least two-thirds of that sentence behind bars before becoming eligible for parole.
As a dangerous offender “of particular concern”, he was also ordered to serve an extended three-year period on prison licence upon his eventual release from custody. This meant that he would be on licence until 2036.
The judge also made a new 15-year sexual-harm prevention order to limit Thrasher’s contact with children and said that the defendant would remain on the sex-offenders’ register for life.
