committed the offences against a 14-year-old and 15-year-old girl<\/a> after buying them alcohol while at a friend’s house in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, in April 2022.<\/p>\nThe 54-year-old, of Holloway, north London, stood trial at St Albans Crown Court under his real name of John Shannon and was found guilty in September.<\/p>\n
The jury found him guilty on four counts of sexual activity with the younger girl, and of sexual assault and assault by penetration relating to the older teenager.<\/p>\n
Alford played Billy Ray in the ITV drama London’s Burning and Robbie Wright in BBC series Grange Hill.<\/p>\n
Both girls were at the house when he arrived after drinking with the homeowner at a nearby pub.<\/p>\n
The court heard Alford had given the girls alcohol and knew they were under 16.<\/p>\n
According to the younger girl, Alford had sex with her in the garden of the house and in a toilet.<\/p>\n
The former actor sexually touched the older girl as she was half asleep on a living room sofa.<\/p>\n
Jurors were told police received a report from the 15-year-old’s mother two days later, outlining the allegations.<\/p>\n
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PA Media<\/p>\n
John Alford appeared in the ITV drama London’s Burning<\/p>\n
Chris White, a lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “John Shannon was fully aware of the girl’s ages, yet he chose to exploit them \u2013 giving them alcohol and then committing sexual offences against them.”<\/p>\n
She commended the victims for coming forward, who gave evidence from behind screens during the trial.<\/p>\n
“Shannon’s sentence today sends a clear message \u2013 we will pursue those who target young people for their own gratification.”<\/p>\n
HM Courts & Tribunals Service<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hertfordshire Police John Alford was sentenced to eight and a half years in jail after sexually assaulting two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-695808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115894577312862851","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Hertfordshire](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/91495380-f168-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp.webp\")
Hertfordshire Police<\/p>\n