Leicester Crown Court<\/a> during his plea hearing on Wednesday, admitted administering a poison or noxious substance, Temazapam, to Susan Ruben between 26 and 29 July last year so she would not wake up while he sexually assaulted the children.<\/p>\nThe 76-year-old defendant, who ran a holiday camp for at least 27 years, said \u201cI\u2019m so sorry\u201d after entering his guilty plea.<\/p>\n
Ruben, who sat in the dock wearing a blue shirt and beige trousers, laced sweets with tranquillising drugs and attacked two children after playing \u201ca sweet game\u201d with the youngsters.<\/p>\n
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open image in gallery<\/p>\n
The scene outside Stathern Lodge which had been hosting the children’s summer camp (Jacob King\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n
The court previously heard that several youngsters became ill after playing the game and found it difficult to walk, had slurred speech and could not wake up.<\/p>\n
Some children \u201ccouldn\u2019t be roused at all\u201d and were vomiting, with one left unconscious.<\/p>\n
The defendant\u2019s stepson raised concerns with his partner during the camp after finding baby oil, syringes with white powder in and other items.<\/p>\n
Eight children were taken to hospital after a report was made to police on 27 July, and liquid Xanax was found to have been used on some of the victims.<\/p>\n
At the time of police attending, Ruben was found to be at a nearby pub with some of the children and was arrested by officers and transported to custody.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor Mary Prior KC told the court: \u201cThe defendant, for at least 27 years, has run a holiday camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a long history of children feeling sick at the camp over many years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruben asked police for a voluntary interview when he admitted he drugged his wife.<\/p>\n
The rented premises, Stathern Lodge, were not connected to the camp itself, the court heard, and Ruben was in charge of youngsters there, Ms Prior said.<\/p>\n
In November, he pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a child under 13, assault of a child under 13 by penetration, eight counts of child cruelty, three counts of making indecent images of children and four drugs charges.<\/p>\n
The indecent images charges admitted by Ruben related to 50 category A indecent videos of children, 22 Category B videos and seven Category C videos made between August 2023 and June last year.<\/p>\n
None of the images concerned relate to children who were at the summer camp.<\/p>\n
He is due to be sentenced on Friday for the offences. Judge Timothy Spencer KC told Ruben his sentencing will be a \u201cvery tough day in your life\u201d as he wept in the dock. <\/p>\n
Temporary Detective Chief Inspector Holden said: \u201cThis has been a horrific, complex and emotional investigation involving multiple young, innocent, vulnerable victims and a man who committed the vilest crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur focus today must of course remain on the young victims and with the support of partners and dedicated Family Liaison Officers, we have and continue to support their welfare and to ensure their safeguarding going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-407788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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