TEENAGER JAILED FOR ONLINE GROOMING AND RAPE OF AUTISTIC GIRL IN CORNWALL
A teenager addicted to pornography groomed a vulnerable autistic girl on Snapchat and raped her in a layby 12 miles from her home in Cornwall, a court heard.Toby Elliott befriended the young girl on the social media platform despite her age clearly showing as 12 years old, and encouraged her to meet up with him.
The girl agreed as she was autistic and vulnerable and didn't understand what could happen.
A sentencing hearing at Truro Crown Court today (Friday, September 12) heard that on Jun 23 Elliott, 18, made contact with the girl and even asked her if she wanted to lose her virginity and whether her parents had put a tracking app or device on her phone.
Elliott, from Trelispen Park Drive in Gorran Haven, later drove her from her town to a layby near another Cornish town where he raped her in two ways before driving her back to her home town.
He later asked her to better present herself should there be further encounters.
His victim told one of her friends who told the victim's mum and the rape was reported to the police.
Elliott was then arrested and pleaded guilty to two counts of raping a girl under the age of 13.
A victim impact statement from the girl's mum told how the rape had a "catastrophic impact" on her and her family.
The devastated mum said her daughter had been a "bright and a high energy child" who was full of a life.
She said the incident had left self-harming and contemplating suicide and trying to go through with it several times including quite recently.
The mum said: "She has become withdrawn.
She struggles to sleep.
She has had to face at a young age the reality how cruel the world can be.
What happened to her has crushed us all as a family.
It had a catastrophic effect on her and leaving her as an empty shell of her former self, and in such pain.
This crime has changed her childhood and her future."
