A paedophile who tried to get a refund from Premier Inn after he was forced to cut short his stay when he was sent to prison is being sued by the former choirboy he sexually assaulted.
Former solicitor Stuart Eager, 74, was exposed by MailOnline last year after it was revealed he demanded the return of £107.50 he said the hotel group owed him.
Now his victim has launched a £120,000 legal fight for compensation for the personal injury he suffered as a result of Eager’s sexual abuse.
He is seeking damages from Eager and the church where he was a choirmaster when the attack happened more than 30 years ago.
The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was aged between 11 and 12 when Eager assaulted him at a farm in Hampshire after offering to give him a lift home from choir practice.
Paedophile Stuart Eager (pictured), 73, is being sued by the former choirboy he sexually assaulted more than 30 years ago
Last year after it was revealed Eager demanded the return of £107.50 he said hotel group Premier Inn owed him after he was forced to cut short his stay at the Portsmouth branch short when he was sent to prison
He is seeking damages from the vicar, parochial church council, and churchwardens of the ecclesiastical parish of St Faith’s Church in Havant, Hampshire.
Eager was jailed for four years at Portsmouth Crown Court after he was convicted of three counts of indecent assault in May 2019.
The former law firm partner was struck off in 1989 after he had previously been convicted for similar offences on young boys in nearby Wymering during the 1980s.
He was released on probation after two years and went on to mount ‘an obsessive campaign’ over his hotel bill.
He had booked a room at Portsmouth’s Premier Inn for six nights and paid upfront but claimed he was left out of pocket after the trial was completed in four days.
Eager, who claimed he had been wrongly convicted, wrote to a female consumer champion at The Daily Telegraph hoping to solicit help in recovering the money.
He said: ‘For the past six months I have been attempting to extract a refund from the Premier Inn, but without success… It was galling enough to serve time for a crime I had not committed without Premier Inn trying to profit from my misfortune.’
His attempt to get sympathy fell flat however – and instead the Telegraph’s responded: ‘You are a convicted paedophile… Now more than two years have passed since the booking. You have accused Premier Inn of profiting at your expense, yet I can’t see any real evidence that it did anything wrong.’
They added: ‘Frankly, I’m surprised you wrote to this column over something comparatively trivial when the circumstances around it are so dreadfully disturbing.’
Eager was jailed for four years at Portsmouth Crown Court after he was convicted of three counts of indecent assault in May 2019
Eager remained unapologetic after being tracked down to his home in Swindon, Wilts, by MailOnline.
He said: ‘I thought it was bang out of order. I thought it was a bit over the top because I’m not quite sure whether it was relevant.
‘My claim was against the Premier Inn in Portsmouth rather than dig up the dirt on what is history.’
Asked whether he had any concerns for his victim, Eager said: ‘As far as the matter she was referring to, there was no victim I should be considering.
‘I continue to deny it. It was a false allegation and a wrongful conviction.’
But after he was jailed Judge William Ashworth said of his victim, ‘His childhood was stolen from him and his adult life was spent trying to come to terms with the trauma.’
Police described Eager as a manipulative paedophile, and said his crimes were shocking and depraved.
After his trial Detective sergeant Julia Nicol, who led the investigation for Hampshire Police, said the manipulation and abuse perpetrated by Eager had a significant impact on the victim’s life.
She said: ‘He was only 11 or 12 at the time of these offences, which makes them all the more shocking and depraved.
‘The boy, now a grown man, harboured this secret for decades, during which he struggled to cope with life and school, his identity, and suffered terribly with his mental health.
‘His childhood was stolen from him, and his adult life was spent trying to come to terms with the trauma.’
