Birthday sex beast who beat student with a slab
A TEENAGER obsessed with violent sex fantasies was jailed for life yesterday for raping and trying to kill a young woman with a paving slab.
Cannabis smoker Charlie Pearce marked his 17th birthday by attacking the student as she walked home through a park at night.
He smashed her over the head after raping her twice then fled, leaving her covered in blood and close to death in what an Old Bailey judge described as “animalistic savagery”.
The student, who spent three weeks in an induced coma, is tormented by her physical and mental scars and has contemplated suicide, the court heard.
Judge Mr Justice HaddonCave, who lifted the legal ban on naming juvenile Pearce at an earlier hearing, branded him “exceptionally dangerous” and said he must serve a minimum of 11 years in jail before being considered for release.
As he was taken away Pearce, who was turned in by his disgusted family after police released CCTV of him with the slab under his arm, grinned at the press bench.
In a harrowing statement his victim, who is in her 20s and still has jaw pain, loss of hearing and bald patches, said she had no memory of the attack in Victoria Park, Leicester, last July.
“I am reminded on a daily basis – and sometimes multiple times a day – of the extensive trauma my body has endured and my mind cannot remember happening to me,” she said.
“I am mentally scarred as well as physically scarred.
“I have had thoughts about hurting myself and ending my life because I feel that I cannot live with the knowledge I have that what happened to me has happened to me.”
Scream
Pearce, of Leicester, who had been drinking, smoking cannabis and viewing violent rape pornography in the days before his birthday, spotted the woman in the park on a semi-lit path, the court was told.
Police were later called by three youths who heard her scream, but officers were unable to locate her as she lay in the bushes. She was found when student Sarah Scheffler rode over some of her property on her bicycle.
Pearce tried to burn his clothes and the victim’s handbag, which he stole as a “trophy”, but was linked to the crime by DNA, her blood on his clothes and an unusually clear CCTV image, the court heard.
The judge said: “There is no doubt in my mind he is an exceptionally dangerous young man. The attack itself was of animalistic savagery.”
Pearce, who had admitted rape and wounding with intent, was found guilty of attempted murder at Leicester Crown Court in December.