Man, 69, Gets 14- Year Term for Molesting Girls

A 69-year-old Chatsworth man who was castrated in 1946 as punishment for child molestation was sentenced Tuesday to 14 years in prison for molesting three San Fernando Valley girls he was baby-sitting.

Alfred W. Bayley, gaunt from the effects of an attempted suicide by a drug overdose on July 16, stared impassively at the floor as Judge Michael A. Tynan imposed the sentence in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Bayley, a retired electrician with the Los Angeles Department of Airports, pleaded guilty April 2 to molesting the girls, ages 4, 7 and 8.

Bayley’s case has attracted widespread attention because in 1946 he submitted to voluntary castration, the surgical removal of the testicles, in lieu of a jail sentence after being convicted of child molestation in Pasadena Superior Court.

Doesn’t Suppress Sex Drive

At the time, castration was thought by some to eliminate sex drive.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathleen Weist said castration was discontinued long ago “because courts ruled it was cruel and unusual punishment and also because it does nothing to suppress a man’s sex drive, as Mr. Bayley’s behavior proves. It does nothing more than terminate a man’s ability to reproduce.”

Bayley’s attorney, Bruce M. Gleason, agreed, calling Bayley’s history a “classic case that proves that castration does not work as a means of halting sexual drive.”

Los Angeles police Detective Douglas Varner said that, although Bayley pleaded guilty to charges involving only three victims, he had confessed to molesting five other children over the last decade, including a 7-month-old boy and a 2-year-old boy.

Several of the victims were molested repeatedly over an extended period, Varner said.

Tynan expressed sympathy for Bayley, but also called his behavior “reprehensible.” The judge said the prison sentence “will keep him from harming any more children.”

Gleason, in a vain attempt to convince Tynan to impose a short prison term, called Bayley a “good, decent human being who has an illness” and who has “led a pretty blameless life other than these deeds.”

Raised Three Sons

Gleason said that, after his 1946 castration, Bayley remained married for two decades to the woman he took as a wife in 1940. The couple raised three sons before they were divorced in 1977, he said.

Gleason termed the ailing Bayley “nothing but skin and bones” and “no threat to anyone.”

But Weist, arguing for the maximum term of 18 years, said Bayley “obviously wasn’t too helpless to molest three small children.”

With time off for good behavior, Bayley could be released in 7 years, Weist said.

A report prepared by Warren Preble, a deputy probation officer, said that Bayley met most of his victims by responding to newspaper ads for baby sitters.

Preble termed Bayley’s use of the baby sitter’s role to molest children “abhorrent, unconscionable, disgusting and reprehensible.”

Girl Undergoing Therapy

At a hearing Aug. 6, a Northridge mother testified that her 8-year-old daughter is undergoing therapy for psychological problems stemming from repeated molestation by Bayley in 1980.

He was baby-sitting her at the time while the mother attended school.

The mother said that Bayley “ensured my daughter’s silence by threating to harm me and my mother.”

The mother said that her daughter broke her silence on the molestation last October, “when there was lots of publicity on other molestation cases. I asked her if she had ever been molested and she burst out crying. That’s how it all started.”

Sentencing was originally scheduled for July 17 but was postponed after Bayley’s suicide attempt. Tynan then order him into protective custody.