SAXON's Founding Bassist STEVE DAWSON Sentenced To Five Years In Prison For Abusing Six-Year-Old Girl In 1990s

According to BBC News, founding SAXON bassist Stephen "Steve" Dawson has been jailed for repeatedly abusing a six-year-old girl in the 1990s.

The 72-year-old, who was a member of SAXON until 1985, when he was kicked out of the band, got the verdict at an earlier hearing at Sheffield Crown Court on March 21, and was given a five-year custodial sentence on April 11.

The officer in charge of the case, Detective Constable Robert Heath, said Dawson "thought he had got away with committing these horrific crimes against a young, vulnerable victim 30 years ago.

"She has shown extraordinary strength through coming forward," he added. "It is clear that his evil acts have remained with her throughout her life, and I hope this sentence goes some way to allowing her to move on from these traumatic events."

Discussing the charge, Heath assured that the case "demonstrates just how seriously we take these offenses," urging others who have "been subject to any offense, no matter how long ago it happened, to come forward and report it to us."

He concluded: "We are here to listen, investigate, and bring the perpetrators before courts."

A few years ago, Dawson told Rhino about how he reacted to being fired from SAXON: "I was sort of sad and relieved in one hit, if you can understand that. I went straight into recording with a guitarist who Phil Lynott had been working with just before he died, and we started making music. Everything was going great, I'd really been enjoying myself, and then all of a sudden the money stops and you end up in court. It all just sort of fizzled out then. I was just getting back to being a well-known musician, but I was broke. [Laughs] Which is sort of a familiar story. So I just sort of bummed around a bit, and then after about two years, I just quit the music business. When it got to the point where the guys were turning up to take the house away and all me furniture, I just thought, 'I've got to do something with real people instead of time-wasters.' So I just gave the music business up, really, and I became a stripper. Not a stripper as in taking my clothes off. [Laughs] Removing paint from objects."

In 1999 Dawson and fellow original SAXON member Graham Oliver registered "SAXON" as a trademark, maintaining that they had exclusive rights in the name and tried to prevent singer Biff Byford and SAXON's promoters and merchandisers from using the name. In 2003, Dawson and Oliver reached a settlement with Byford and guitarist Paul Quinn over the usage of the SAXON name and logos belonging to the original partnership.

OLIVER/DAWSON SAXON, consisting of Oliver and Dawson, acknowledged that the band featuring Byford and Quinn would continue to be known as "SAXON", and have use of the logo. In return, Byford and Quinn acknowledged that OLIVER/DAWSON SAXON had a legitimate use of the name in that form.