Locations
Rhydwen Drive, Rhyl, Denbighshire, LL18 & Cheltenham Avenue, Rhyl, Denbighshire, LL18
Description
A man who raped a young girl in the woods when he was a teenager was sentenced for his crimes today.
Steven Booker was 15 when he raped the 13-year-old in Rhyl in the summer of 1990.
The horrific offence only came to light after the victim became a grown woman and reported the incident.
Today Steven Booker, now 46, of Rhydwen Drive, Rhyl, was jailed at Mold Crown Court for two years and six months for the rape.
His co-accused Nicholas Roberts, also 46, of Cheltenham Avenue, Rhyl, was also jailed for six months for indecently assaulting the girl.
Their victim has lifelong anonymity to protect her identity.
The judge His Honour Judge David Hale, told the defendants in the dock: “I’m going to sentence you for something that you did many years ago, something you hoped would never ever see the light of day, and certainly something you hoped you would never see as a conviction.”
The judge added: "You must have remembered it. You must have been ashamed for what you did to that girl then, when she was 13 and a half.
"You, Mr Booker, would have been 15 and a quarter. You, Mr Roberts, 15 and a half, playing in the woods on a summer's day."
The judge said Booker "took it upon yourself to have a sexual experience with her".
The judge said an aggravating feature was what he said to Roberts, which the court heard was "Wanna go, Nick?"
Jailing Booker for the rape, he also gave him two concurrent sentences of six months each for two indecent assaults.
As for Nicholas Roberts, the judge said the rape and indecent assaults happened "in front of him"
But Roberts was cleared of raping the 13-year-old girl.
Mold Crown Court also heard that about a year after the incident in the woods, Roberts raped a different girl in a house in Rhyl.
"It was a deliberate act on your part", said the judge.
One victim said the crimes have affected her ability to trust people and to be intimate. The convictions by the jury were a "great weight off her shoulders".
The other victim said she suffers flashbacks and feels unsafe in Rhyl.
Simon Rogers, defending Booker, said his client's offences stemmed from a "single incident of sexual experimentation".
And Simon Killeen, defending, urged the judge to be lenient and said Roberts has learning difficulties. His mother, who has severe arthritis, relies on him to drive.
Overall, he jailed Booker for two and a half years for the rape in the woods, plus two six-month terms for indecent assaults, both to run concurrently.
Roberts was jailed for two and a half years for the rape in the house, plus six months for the indecent assault and six months for sexual assault of a child aged under 13, making a total of three and a half years' imprisonment.
He was further given six months in jail for inciting a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity, to run concurrently.
Both men also received lifelong restraining orders not to contact their victims.