Locations
Church Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR32
Description
A man who raped a 12-year-old girl he had groomed on social media has been jailed for eight years.
Oscar Fitzgerald, 26, from Lowestoft, Suffolk, arranged online to meet his victim and then drove her to his house.
The girl was reported missing by her mother soon after and police began searches. She was found after texting her mother.
Police said Fitzgerald, who was jailed at Norwich Crown Court on Friday, was a "dangerous sexual offender".
Fitzgerald, who had lived at Church Road, had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to three counts of raping a girl under 13.
Fitzgerald had made contact with the girl, from west Suffolk, on the same day she went missing last September and he was aware she was just 12, police said.
'Courage of victim'
The victim told officers she had arrived at a house and was told to go upstairs, where she was then raped, despite telling him to stop.
She texted her mother as she was walking home, after being dropped off at a bus-stop.
Fitzgerald was arrested later at his home after the girl gave police his first name, the colour of his car, his phone number and described the two-bedroom house.
Det Con Stephen Clarke, of Suffolk police, said he wanted to "commend the courage of the victim" who was able to give an "immediate detailed account".
"It was this prompt action that led officers being able to identify and detain Fitzgerald.
"We have been able to remove a dangerous sexual offender from the street," he said.
Fitzgerald has been put on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.