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| Charlie Pearce: Rapist who bludgeoned victim with paving slab and left her for dead sentenced to 11 years in prison | Charlie Pearce: Rapist who bludgeoned victim with paving slab and left her for dead sentenced to 11 years in prison |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| Convicted rapist Charlie Pearce, who bludgeoned a woman with a paving slab and left her for dead in Leicester, has been sentenced to a minimum of 11 years in prison. | |
| Pearce carried out the attack on his 17th birthday in July last year, after researching rape online. | |
| He denied meaning to kill the woman, but admitted two counts of rape, causing grievous bodily harm with intent and stealing her handbag. | |
| Following a trial at Leicester Crown Court, he was found guilty of attempted murder, having left his victim with her life “hanging by a thread”. | |
| Sentencing Pearce to life with a minimum term of 11 years at the Old Bailey, Justice Haddon-Cave said Pearce was “exceptionally dangerous” and attacked the woman with “animalistic savagery”. | |
| Mr Haddon-Cave said Pearce had carried out a “predatory attack” with a sexual or sadistic nature and had “intended to silence the victim forever”. | |
| He said: “The defendant set out that evening to mark his 17th birthday to find a woman to attack and violently rape. | |
| “He can be seen on CCTV circling the park and hunting [the victim] down as she walked through the park. The attack itself was of animalistic savagery. The offending was exceptionally serious.” | |
| The court heard Pearce had dragged the victim into undergrowth in Leicester’s Victoria Park and hit her over the head with a concrete slab. | |
| The start of his attack was witnessed by youths in the park nearby who called police. But a police patrol was unable to find anything because they could not give a precise location, the court heard. | |
| About an hour later, a passing cyclist saw a pool of fresh blood and a hair clip on the ground. | |
| The judge said she showed great bravery in going into the bushes to investigate and comfort the victim before emergency services arrived. | |
| The victim, in her twenties, was rushed to hospital with horrific head injuries. | |
| The following day, police circulated a “remarkably clear” CCTV image of Pearce, running towards her holding the slab. | |
| His family recognised him and contacted police following the media appeal. | |
| The victim awoke from a coma weeks later, unaware of what had happened. | |
| In a statement read out at the Old Bailey before sentencing, she said she was left “mentally and physically scarred” by the incident. | |
| “I do not remember screaming when I was assaulted though I am aware that screams were reported to the police by various people that night. | “I do not remember screaming when I was assaulted though I am aware that screams were reported to the police by various people that night. |
| “My screams did not stop my attacker from causing me further harm and nor did they help me be found so I could receive medical care I needed. | “My screams did not stop my attacker from causing me further harm and nor did they help me be found so I could receive medical care I needed. |
| “Knowing that my screams did not change anything for me that night continues to trouble me.” | “Knowing that my screams did not change anything for me that night continues to trouble me.” |
| She described how her life and ambitions had been “put on hold by Charlie Pearce’s criminal actions”. | She described how her life and ambitions had been “put on hold by Charlie Pearce’s criminal actions”. |
| “The six months which have now passed since I was discharged from hospital amounts to an ongoing period of time that can never be gotten back, time which has been taken from me and from how I live my life, without my permission and against my wishes. | “The six months which have now passed since I was discharged from hospital amounts to an ongoing period of time that can never be gotten back, time which has been taken from me and from how I live my life, without my permission and against my wishes. |
| “I am reminded on a daily basis – and sometimes multiple times a day – of the extensive trauma my body has endured and my mind cannot remember happening to me.” | “I am reminded on a daily basis – and sometimes multiple times a day – of the extensive trauma my body has endured and my mind cannot remember happening to me.” |
| Pearce’s victim said she still suffers from jaw pain, loss of hearing in her right ear and has bald patches. | |
| They were all “physical reminders of the damage that was done to me by a complete stranger when I was walking home,” she said. | They were all “physical reminders of the damage that was done to me by a complete stranger when I was walking home,” she said. |
| She went on: “I am mentally scarred as well as physically scarred. I have had thoughts about hurting myself and ending my life because I feel that I cannot live with the knowledge I have that what happened to me has happened to me.” | She went on: “I am mentally scarred as well as physically scarred. I have had thoughts about hurting myself and ending my life because I feel that I cannot live with the knowledge I have that what happened to me has happened to me.” |
| In mitigation, Phillip Bradley QC said: “She was the innocent victim of violence that was as gratuitous as it was unprovoked.” Pearce accepted he was “entirely responsible” for that violence, he said. | |
| The seven-and-a-half years’ custody for the rapes will run concurrently to his life sentence. | |
| Additional reporting by PA |