Jailed: 'Predatory' Walsall man raped terrified schoolgirl in 'brazen' attack off Bournemouth beach

Gabriel Marinoaica put his hand over his terrified victim's mouth so she could not scream and alert the packed beach of her plight. Now 20, Marinoaica had just turned 18 when he raped the girl on a sunny Sunday in July 2021.

Minutes earlier Marinoaica and his friends approached the girl, who was playing in the sea with her friends. As soon as they left the water he asked if they "could smash".

When she refused he pulled her to where she could no longer stand on the seabed and then sexually assaulted her and then raped her for a minute.

She only escaped his clutches when his friend disturbed them. After getting back on to the beach he followed her and asked her for her Snapchat details. She refused and he was eventually tracked down due to DNA before being found guilty of three charges of sexual assault and the rape last month.

He was acquitted of a further charge of sexual assault by biting her neck.

Judge Susan Evans KC sentenced Marinoaica to six and a half years and subjected him to to a sexual harm prevention order for 20 years, and ordered him to sign the sex offenders' register for life.

Bournemouth Crown Court heard how the rape had wrecked the schoolgirl's life. She bravely attended court previously but did not want to see his face, not even to see him jailed.

In a victim impact statement she said: "I still think about it every day. I don't know if I will ever be able to go back to part of the beach ever again.

"I find it really hard to share how I have been left feeling after that attack on me, I have tried to put it behind me but it is never not with me, it will never not be part of my life experiences, my childhood.

"I have had to face and realise how my way of life has changed, I have been changed, it has left me overwhelmed.I used to have a huge love for the beach and the sea but I have lost it and I am left feeling uneasy.

She added: "I feel so unsafe in the water now, going into the water makes me feel sick, I do not think I will ever be able to go in without someone with me as I am full of fear it will happen again."

The Judge told the defendant his attack had made countless women feel unsafe, she said: "Young people should be safe on a busy beach on a sunny afternoon, sadly that was not the case."

"It was a brazen attack in broad daylight with many people around. The beach should be a safe place where young people can go without fear of being raped or sexually assaulted.

"What you did does undermine public confidence in the safety of a public place like that."

Judge Evans said that the defendant had behaved in a predatory manner and had used a form of "detention" by taking his victim, who could not swim, out of her depth into the sea.

She said: "There is some predatory behaviour, having picked out a group of young girls to target."

"You pulled her out to see to the extent she couldn't reach the bottom and notwithstanding that she told you she couldn't swim, you took her further out to see.

"That was plainly frightening and you made her vulnerable. You placed your hand over her mouth, you did it so she couldn't scream or get help, you knew full well that she was not consenting."

She added that the defendant afterwards asked for the complainant's Snapchat contacts and added: "It may have been in your mind to make it look like something consensual which it never was."

The court heard that Marinoaica was questioned by police earlier in 2021 about an unconnected allegation of rape but no further action was taken as the sex was found to have been consensual.

Judge Evans told him: "The police were involved and that interaction with the police doesn't appear to have acted as a sufficient warning to you on how you should conduct yourself in sexual matters in the future."