Rapist who attacked schoolgirl in uniform jailed for 12 years

A sex predator who fled to Scotland after abducting and raping a 14-year-old girl at knifepoint on her walk to school has been jailed for 12 years.

‘Calculated and predatory’ Oliver Smith, 21, pounced on the teenager in her school uniform and pulled a box-cutter blade on her as she walked through a nature area.

In the 45-minute ordeal, he subjected her to ‘gratuitous threats of violence’ and forced her to a secluded woodland spot and raped her up against a tree.

When the ‘scared’ and ‘sobbing’ schoolgirl tried to flee, Smith chased after her and grabbed hold of her mouth to cover her screams, threatening to stab her in the throat.

A court heard Smith meticulously planned the attack by scoping out the woods, wearing gloves, washing the victim in a river afterwards, and had a ‘deeply disturbing’ manifesto.

Nine months before the attack Smith was convicted of voyeurism and having child abuse images – but escaped jail.

After the horrific rape, he fled 600 miles away to a remote part of the Scottish Highlands but couldn’t go any further as he didn’t have a passport.

Smith was found by officers from Police Scotland who brought them back to England. Today, at Portsmouth Crown Court, Smith – who the court heard uses they/them pronouns – was jailed for 12 years as the schoolgirl’s parents watched on.

The court heard that on the morning of September 27, Smith, who lived with his grandmother in the town, was seen leaving home early in the morning but not in his work clothes.

Prosecutor Simon Foster said Smith was waiting in the woods for 30 minutes before the girl arrived. The court also heard a week before, a walker had seen ‘a man standing there in a manner that scared her’.

Mr Foster said: ‘She said he knew exactly where he was going as if it was planned before. She was scared, panicking, hyper-ventilating, and crying [during the attack]. During this, she was wondering if she would see her family again.’

The girl, in her police interview, said: ‘I went into the woods, this man came up to me, I tried to move out of the way. He pulled out a box cutter from his pocket and said ‘You are coming with me’ and turned me around.

She added: ‘He put the knife in his pocket and he tried to run, I lost both of my shoes trying to run and he grabbed the back of my hood. He put his hand over my mouth so I could not scream anymore. He said if I tried to run or scream again he would put this knife into my neck… I didn’t want to die.’

The girl said when Smith led her to a secluded spot, she was ‘so scared’ she took her clothes off as he asked.

The court was told harrowing details about how Smith forced the terrified girl to perform sex acts on him and then raped her against a tree. He made vile comments, calling her a ‘slut’, and made derogatory remarks about her genitals.

After raping her, Smith led the ‘distressed’ girl through the woods – turning sharply to avoid other people – and walked her to a nearby river and told her ‘I’m going to wash you off’, adding ‘you won’t die, I promise you’.

After washing the girl in the river, he allowed her to leave. She fled the woods, contacted her mother, and was found ‘distressed’ by a dog-walker.

Smith immediately took a train to London, then a train to Edinburgh before travelling to and being arrested in Mallaig, a town on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands – almost 600 miles from the attack in Bordon.

A search of his home revealed Smith had a ‘deeply disturbing manifesto’ planning an attack, outlining considerations like ‘disguise’ and ‘witnesses’.

The court heard he spent time on online chatrooms, had ‘no friends’, had a ‘long-standing porn addiction’ and watched ‘disturbing pornography’.

In her victim impact statement, the girl said: ‘I get very paranoid out of the house and I keep looking over my shoulder, I always think someone is behind me. Before I was very affectionate and liked hugging and now I hate people touching me.

‘I like to be alone now. I like to be alone in my room by myself where it’s quiet. People who slightly match his description make me scared. My school uniform triggers me because it happened in my school uniform.’

The girl’s parents, who attended court, said in their statement their world has ‘shattered beyond belief’.

‘She was one of the kindest, gentlest souls. Now, she is a shell of her former self,’ they said. ‘She used to be an outgoing, confident child with an amazing sense of humour. That’s all changed and disappeared.

‘What we would do to see her contagious laughter again. Her childhood has been ripped away.’

In mitigation, Rupert Hallowes said Smith suffers from ‘gender issues’ and at the time was suffering from a depressive episode. Smith ‘lacked maturity’ and is ‘very sorry’, he added.

Judge James Newton-Price KC jailed Smith for 12 years, calling it a ‘horrific and traumatic’ ordeal.

Judge Newton-Price KC branded Smith a ‘danger to women’.

He said: ‘You demonstrated calculated and predatory behaviour, I am sure you planned what you wanted to do that day. You were forensically aware, wearing gloves and making her wash herself.

‘It involved degradation and humiliation, it was a sustained incident – 45 minutes – and involved gratuitous threats of violence at knifepoint.’

The schoolgirl’s mother kept her eyes fixed on Smith during the hearing and her father wept as harrowing details were read out.

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