Daughter of raped girl, 13, sees attacker sent to prison
A ‘WICKED’ rapist who made a 13-year-old pregnant in the 1970s has been jailed decades after the crime – following a successful prosecution by the daughter conceived in the attack.
Carvel Bennett, now 74, admitted having sex with his schoolgirl victim more than 40 years ago but claimed she seduced him, telling him she was 16.
He was jailed for 11 years at Birmingham crown court. Asked if he owed his victim an apology, Bennett replied: ‘I don’t feel I have done anything to her.’
Judge Martin Hurst, sentencing, told Bennett he had engaged in ‘victim-blaming’ at the trial, adding: ‘ You hold her responsible for your wicked act.’ He said the jury had seen through his ‘ridiculous’ claim that she instigated sex.
The victim was 14 by the time she gave birth to a girl, who was fostered and later put up for adoption, the court heard.
The fresh inquiry only took place after the daughter asked for her adoption files when she was 18 and traced her birth mother. Social services records from the time named Bennett as her father.
The judge said she had ‘pursued justice in this case for herself and her mother, doggedly and with determination’.
DNA results proved Bennett was the father, though he denied paternity during a police investigation in 2019. In a statement read in court, the victim said
she was told to ‘go back to school as normal’ immediately after the birth. ‘I had no support and was scared – I was left to deal with it alone,’ she said.
Bennett’s daughter, who cannot be identified, told him in the dock: ‘Your act of violence decimated any potential relationship between my birth mother and I because you chose to rape a child.’ She added: ‘I am not your shame and I will not carry the shame and horror of what you chose to do.’