JAIL FOR RAPIST WHO KEPT VICTIM PRISONER
A WIRRAL man who raped an 18-year-old girl during a two-day ordeal while he kept her prisoner was jailed for five years.At Lee Stewart's trial Liverpool Crown Court heard that the teenager's ordeal began after he pulled her along a road into a taxi and back to his house.
She was held there and at another address in Wirral.
Stewart, aged 21, of Treetops Drive, Bebington, pleaded guilty to two charges of rape.
Further charges of kidnap and false imprisonment, which he denied, were laid on the file.
Judge David Clarke, QC, the Recorder of Liverpool, told Stewart: "I believe you are a young man who expects to get his own way and finds it difficult to accept rejection.
You clearly have a great deal to learn." Stewart pleaded guilty before the girl was due to enter the witness box.
Judge Clarke said that it had been an act of courage by Stewart "in finally facing up to the truth of what you had done and it occurred despite unacceptable pressure the other way from various friends and supporters." He added that Stewart would have to register with the police under the Sex Offenders' Act for life upon his release from jail.
Mr Geoffrey Lowe, prosecuting, told the court that Stewart took the girl home on Monday, January 20, and he forcibly raped her in his bedroom, despite her crying and screaming.
Afterwards he said they were going somewhere because he wanted them both to die and warned her not to do anything stupid.
En route to a flat in Birkenhead, she tried to attract the attention of a passing police car and he punched her, he said.
At the flat he produced some tablets and made her take about 10, which he also did.
She fell asleep and the next day they went back to his house, by which time the girl's parents had informed the police that she was missing.
Stewart remained unpredictable.
The following morning she was awoken by him touching her.
He removed her underclothing and raped her again while she resisted, said Mr Lowe.
When interviewed, Stewart said he had been trying tablets and was 'off his head', he said.
His counsel, Mr Stuart Driver, said Stewart, whose father left home when he was young, has a problem with rejection and his feelings which perhaps cause him to react in an exaggerated way, he said.
A friend of Stewart's, Stephen Siddorn, who was convicted of intimidating the victim prior to Stewart's trial, was jailed for four months.
Siddorn, 22, of Shrewsbury Road, Oxton, had denied the charge.
Judge Clarke told him: "It is clear you were not the only person who tried to frighten her out of going to court to give evidence and did it in a misguided attempt to help your friend.
The message must go out that those who carry messages to try to stop others giving evidence will serve a prison sentence for it."
