Rapist given life term for violent attack on 13-year-old in country park
A rapist who attacked a "bubbly" schoolgirl he befriended on social media on the Walsall-Staffordshire border has been given a minimum life term jail sentence.
Wayne Scarratt, aged 30, was sentenced in his absence after refusing to attend the video hearing despite efforts to encourage him to appear.
He carried out the horrific attack on the 13-year-old who feared he would kill her after travelling to meet her from Malvern on August 7 last year.
Sentencing him for rape, assault occasioning grievous bodily harm, common assault, theft and breach of a sexual harm prevention order Judge Kristina Montgomery KC said "there was no mitigation" for Scarratt's actions.
She told Stafford Crown Court on Monday that the victim in her impact statement "demonstrates in her understanding and account" "maturity beyond her years". She said it will take many years for the teenager to recover from her ordeal.
Judge Montogmery said: "She knows that what happened is not her fault. But she feels that in some way that she bears responsibility for her engagement with him. It is a sad fact that it will take many years of disquiet for her to overcome this.
"I hope that over time therapy and the loving support of her family will help her to do so."
Scarratt a convicted paedophile violently raped the girl hours after befriending her on Instagram and Snapchat just two weeks after being released from prison for a previous offence.
In the latest case, after meeting at a shop he walked with her to a nature reserve where he grabbed her before raping her, stamping on her, causing fractures to her eye socket, jaw and collar bone.
Scarratt who fled on foot also stole her phone, preventing her from calling for help. The emergency services and her mother were called to the scene after she was seen crawling towards the road on her hands and knees, in a distressed state.
Scarratt maintained he thought she was over 18. The judge said CCTV images clearly showed that the victim was very young.
Following discussions with Manchester Prison and the victim's family who were in court for the hearing a decision was taken to encourage Scarratt to appear, but he did not.
Miss Maria Brannan, prosecuting barrister, said the defendant had 10 previous convictions for 17 offences including for child sexual offences in 2012 against a 13-year-old girl whom he met on Facebook. For that matter he was jailed for four and a half years in 2014 and made subject to a sexual harm prevention order, banning him from contacting children.
After breaching the ban in April 2021 he was jailed for two years. However, two weeks after his release from prison he committed the latest offence.
Defending Scarratt, of Orchid Court in Malvern in Worcestshire barrister Mr Dafydd Roberts said: "Clearly only a sentence of very long custody is appropriate."
For rape and wounding he was jailed for a minimum life term of 12 years and six months concurrently, for assault he was jailed for 19 years, for theft of her phone six months and breach of the sexual harm prevention order jailed four years all concurrently.
