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Teenager faces jail after double rape in Pentagon Shopping Centre car park in Chatham

A teenager is facing a lengthy sentence behind bars for twice raping a young girl in a shopping centre car park.

The victim told how she was forced into sex acts with the 16-year-old because she feared he belonged to a Medway gang.

The girl, aged 15, said she did not try to fight him off or run away as she had seen him with a knife under his jacket.

The teenager, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, denied two charges of oral rape, but was convicted on Monday.

Maidstone Crown Court heard the girl told a teacher at her school what had happened to her.

She said she had been at the Pentagon Centre with a friend in March when a boy, wearing a bandana on his head, approached her.

He told her to go with him and they moved away from her friends to a stairwell in the multi-storey car park.

The teenager asked if she was sexually active and whether she had “given uck” - a slang term for a sex act. He asked if she was going to do it for him.

He unbuckled his belt and forced her to perform the act.

The rear car park entrance, off The Brook.Views of the Pentagon Centre building. Chatham.Picture: Andy Payton
The rear car park entrance, off The Brook.Views of the Pentagon Centre building. Chatham.Picture: Andy Payton

Prosecutor Christopher May said the next day the girl was at the shopping centre again with friends when they saw the teenager and other boys.

He again asked her to go to the stairwell. She tried to gesture to the others to go with her, but they didn’t.

“She was worried about the repercussions if she refused what he wanted,” said Mr May. “Afterwards, she was very scared and ran off to find her friends.”

She saw him again on another occasion at the centre and he showed her videos on his phone of other girls performing the sex act on him.

The victim said in a recorded interview she knew the teenager was in a gang.

She said of the first time he told her to perform the sex act: “At that point I was scared, because he’s like gang and stuff, and he’s got like knives and stuff.

“And, like, I would love to have retaliated, like hit him back or something, but I didn’t want to get hit or, like, stabbed or anything.”

Mr May told jurors: “The prosecution case is this was not done consensually. He pressured her into doing so. She made it very clear she did not want to do so by telling him repeatedly.

“She didn’t want to do it. She felt disgusted. She felt sick.”

Maidstone Crown Court. Stock picture (4143995)
Maidstone Crown Court. Stock picture (4143995)

The next day the girl said the teenager was “really aggravated” and “really vexed”. She tried to get her friends to go with her and the teenager got “really mad”.

He later contacted her on Instagram. She saw a photo of him wearing a face covering known as a “bally”, similar to the one he wore in the shopping centre.

She blocked him and deleted the messages because she didn’t want to be reminded of it.

The teenager was arrested at his work on March 24.

“She didn’t want to do it. She felt disgusted. She felt sick" - Christopher May

Mr May said DNA from the girl’s scarf produced a match with the teenager. The chances of it coming from somebody other than, and unrelated to, him was one in a billion.

The teenager, from Medway, claiming the victim consented.

The jury of six men and six women was out for over eight hours before returning guilty verdicts by an 11-1 majority.

Judge Adele Williams adjourned sentence for reports until November 2. The teenager was remanded in custody.

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