DECLAN DELANEY SENTENCED IN STOCKPORT FOR 14-HOUR HOSTAGE AND RAPE ORDEAL

In May 2021, Declan Delaney, a 23-year-old man from Romiley, Stockport, was sentenced to 14 years in prison after subjecting a teenage girl, known only as Miss A, 19, to a 14-hour ordeal involving kidnapping and sexual assault. The court heard that Delaney asked Miss A to deliver some items to his residence but became enraged when she decided to go to bed early instead. He made multiple threats, which prompted her to drive to his brother’s home. From there, Delaney coerced her into driving him to his flat, where he declared, 'This is my car now, you’re not getting it back. You’re staying with me.'

Inside the flat, he held Miss A captive, raping her twice, banging her head against a chair, pulling her hair, and threatening her with knives. Delaney told her he was going to kill her and forced her to listen to a loudspeaker call with a friend, whom he instructed to bring a van, gloves, and rope. The court was told that Delaney told his friend: 'We’ll take her to the usual spot in that abandoned unit, tie her up and leave her.' When the friend appeared to arrive at the scene, Delaney told Miss A: 'You can save me a job of me killing you, why don’t you just kill yourself now. I’ll leave you in this room to die, no one will ever find you.'

Miss A managed to escape the following day by persuading Delaney she would not reveal her ordeal, while also faking calls to friends and family, claiming she was fine. She eventually arrived at her mother’s home in a distressed state—disheveled, injured, hysterical, breathing heavily, and in great distress, as described during court proceedings. In her police statement, she expressed her fear for her life: 'I genuinely believed he was going to kill me and I felt utterly degraded.' She detailed the aftermath, saying, 'In the days and weeks following the attack I suffered soreness to my body plus mental and emotional exhaustion and being unable to comprehend what had happened, constantly reliving the experience. I felt dirty and was washing myself constantly. I couldn’t leave my house for a number of days and couldn’t return to work and felt unable to do anything. I also felt a sense of blame, self-doubt and uselessness. I have felt completely alone and ashamed. I was once a happy, stable, bubbly, outgoing person but I am shy, withdrawn and broken. He’s completely changed me as a person.'

She described the lasting emotional scars: 'The physical injuries have healed, but the emotional and psychological scars run much deeper, and still have not begun to heal, and I feel that they won’t. And I will be this person forevermore. I have no escape from what he did to me. Day and night, it haunts me. This is a real nightmare for me that has never ended. I worry that I will never be rid of it.'

The court also highlighted that Miss A had explained her inability to drop off Delaney's belongings due to her need to prepare for work the next morning. Delaney responded with threats, saying: 'I swear on my sister’s grave, I’ll do it,' when she refused. She then drove to his brother’s home with the intention to return the same night but was forced to go to Delaney’s flat. En route, he became aggressive, manhandling her and expressing a desire to crash the car into a wall. Once at his flat, he confiscated her phone and keys and sent a message to her mother claiming she was 'fine' and staying over.

Prosecutor Alaric Bassano described the violence: 'Over a period of what she judges to be about two and a half hours he pulled her hair by her plaits and dragged her about the room by her head. He also grabbed her head, striking it against a chair, kicked her leg, dug his hand into her arm, repeatedly spat in her face, caused her ear piercing to tear and bleed, and threatened her with knives. He made her log onto her own Facebook and Instagram accounts using his phone, then sent messages to her male contacts pretending to be her and claimed he had evidence of her infidelity, all driven by anger, jealousy, and paranoia. At one point he threatened her in an extreme way, ringing someone, putting the call on loudspeaker, and declaring he had a 'job' for him to do.'

Delaney was convicted on multiple charges, including two counts of rape, false imprisonment, actual bodily harm, battery, and threats to damage property. The court noted his previous convictions for assaulting and controlling a former girlfriend in 2018, along with offences for violent burglary and drug trafficking.

Judge Mr. Recorder Peter Atherton sentenced Delaney, stating: 'You led her to believe that you were actively making arrangements to kill her and burn and dump her body where it would not be found. You humiliated and terrified her. You ignored her obvious fear and distress, and you cruelly denied her basic human needs.' The judge emphasized the lasting impact on Miss A, saying, 'It is clear from her personal statement that her dreadful experiences at your hands have had devastating ongoing consequences for her and her family. In different ways, each of these offences and your previous convictions demonstrate a propensity for coercive control and violence in your relationships with young women.'