The defendant, Brett, was reportedly sentenced to ‘several’ years in prison for the kidnapping and rape of an 11-year-old girl. However, he filed a notice of intention to appeal against the severity of the sentence, prompting the DPP to appeal against the leniency of Brett’s sentence. The attack began after Brett kidnapped the girl while threatening her with a pair of scissors. He then raped her in three different locations.
In her testimony, the schoolgirl told the court how Brett ruined her childhood, left her in permanent fear of strangers, and made her consider suicide. Brett received a maximum sentence of 23 years and six months, with parole eligibility after 17 years. According to Judge Ellis, Brett’s crime was extreme, and he showed no sympathy, empathy, or compassion as he attacked the girl. The then-49-year-old man has been attacked several times since he was imprisoned, and is eligible for parole in 2035. According to Brett, he’d binged on po-nography and had been smoking synthetic cannabis before the attack. He therefore was unable to explain his crime. “That is the big question with me, is why I did such a thing,” he told a psychiatrist. On that day, the girl was walking through Hudson Park at about 9.15 a.m. when Brett abducted her. For five hours, the father-of-three se-ually and indecently assaulted the 11-year-old before releasing her at about 2.15 p.m.
Following the assault, Brett placed a plastic bag over the girl’s head, dropped her at the train station and told her to walk home. The girl gave a detailed description of her attacker, which led to Brett’s arrest four days later. In her victim impact statement, the girl told the court: “It is important that you hear what I have to say to you. I have been waiting for this day to tell you how I feel and how you have affected my life.”
“Today, tomorrow and years ahead, I will be scarred and never cured. I may look strong and brave on the outside but on the inside I’m breaking down. I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster, going up and falling back down,” she said. “Before all this happened, I was carefree, happy, excited. I used to think I was pretty and be a confident person. I was scared of nothing. My life was so happy back then. I used to walk around town with a big smile. I loved my life and my world was safe. I had nothing to worry about.”
“I have had suicidal thoughts because I want the pain to stop and to be in control of my thoughts and my feelings. I will deal with this for the rest of my life. I have come a long way from when this first happened and I have achieved and survived a lot,” she told her attacker. “But, I often feel like a damaged girl. I have noticed it gets harder and harder as I get older because I understand more. You violated me on that long day but it it has impacted the rest of my life. You took away my safety and my life as I knew it. But I survived and I am holding you accountable. You will have to live with what you did to me. I can never forgive you.” We are republishing this story amid recent reports that child sexual abuse has surged in America during the COVID-19 pandemic.
