TEENAGER JAILED FOR RAPE AND STRANGULATION OF 16-YEAR-OLD GIRL
A teenager has been locked up for raping and throttling a girl in her own bedroom.The victim confronted Jamie George, 18, in court at the sentencing hearing on Wednesday (November 19), telling him how she had self-harmed and been unable to sleep in her bed for months after the attack.
Prosecutor Steven Bailey told Leicester Crown Court how George had met the girl at a Halloween party in Nottingham in 2023 and, after they exchanged messages on Snapchat, she agreed to him visiting her at her home in Leicester in January last year.
During the visit, the teenagers - who were both 16 at the time - kissed each other but the girl made it clear she did not want to have sex with George, despite what Mr Bailey described as George's "emotional blackmail" of the girl, talking about how he struggled with words and how his "love language was physical".
The girl walked him to the bus stop and he intended to catch a train back to his home in Cheshire.
But later he called the girl and claimed his train had been cancelled due to the weather.
After checking with her mum, the girl said George could stay at her house.
Mr Bailey said: "Once they were back in her room he began to pester her for sex.
"He told her he had no friends, which she doubted was true, and that he had tried to kill himself recently." She said George, having spotted self-harming scars on the girl's legs, talked about his own self-harming.
Mr Bailey said: "He harvested the information and used it to get what he wanted." But the girl maintained that they would not be having sex.
Then George attacked her.
Mr Bailey said: "He put first one and then two hands around her neck and when she complained he gripped more tightly and that scared her.
She hit out at him." Mr Bailey said George told the girl he wanted to do some "play fighting" and then hit her, "proving to both of them that he was powerful enough to overpower her".
He said that from that point on the girl was in shock and he sexually assaulted her and then lay on top of her and raped her.
Mr Bailey said: "He told her he could not resist the urge.
She told him repeatedly she didn't want him to do that.
She was unable to move to get him off her- he was six foot tall plus and heavy." The girl's mother told her college what had happened and they contacted Leicestershire Police.
George, of Pike Lane, Kingsley in Cheshire, pleaded not guilty and, because he was still under 18, the trial took place at Leicester Youth Court.
District Judge Nick Watson found George guilty of rape, assault by penetration and intentional strangulation.
Evidence at the trial included George's Snapchat messages in which George told the girl he was "genuinely sorry" and "I hope you can forgive me".
He described strangling the girl as "just being kinky" and accused her of "gaslighting" him.
He said in another message: "It's up to you to forgive me." George's victim, who attended the sentencing hearing, read out her victim personal statement to the court.
She said she had been unable to sleep in her bed for six months after the rape and thinking about the incident made her skin crawl.
She said: "I felt angry and hurt.
He was still living his normal life and I had to deal with guilt and shame.
It was horrible and it really affects how I view myself." She said the mental health impact led to her self-harming and had a big effect on her college work.
She said: "I could have achieved a lot more if this hadn't happened to me." Derek Johashen, representing George, told the court his client still denied the offences.
He said: "He comes from a Christian, god-fearing background.
He is a young man who has huge prospects." Commenting on the offences, he said: "Things were going okay and then they didn't.
He's used his physical strength to overcome her lack of consent." He asked the judge to give George "significant discount" for the fact he was only 16 at the time of the offending.
Judge Rebecca Herbert locked up George for three years and four months.
He will serve the sentence in a young offenders institution.
She told George: "You were manipulative, trying to persuade her into going along with what you wanted.
You gripped her around the neck, she was frightened and hit out at you.
"You laughed that off but you started to undo her clothes.
She said no.
She was not happy and becoming more and more afraid." She said the attack had caused "significant psychological harm" to the victim.
She added: "This happened in her bedroom where she should feel safe.
"Instead, she couldn't sleep in her bed for a substantial time afterwards.
You were aware of the vulnerabilities of the victim and you exploited them." "There's no doubt the impact of what happened to her will continue far into the future, if not being life-long." George was also made subject to an indefinite restraining order banning contact with the victim and will have to sign onto the sex offenders register for life.
Speaking after sentencing, Detective Constable Lewis McMenamin said: "Firstly and most importantly, I must praise the victim in this case for her courage in reliving her ordeal.
Her evidence was significant in securing this conviction." “She made it completely clear that she did not consent to sexual intercourse but despite this, he proceeded to sexual assault her, leaving her imaginably very upset.
Not only has the decision that George made has left an everlasting effect on her life but also his own as he now is a convicted criminal serving a period of time in custody.”
