Charlie Pearce: Rapist who bludgeoned victim with paving slab and left her for dead sentenced to 11 years in prison

Teenager guilty of attempted murder, leaving victim’s life ‘hanging by a thread’

Pearce carried out the attack on the woman on his 17th birthday in July last year, having researched rape online (Leicestershire Police/PA)

Convicted rapist Charlie Pearce, who bludgeoned a woman with a paving slab and left her for dead in Leicester, has been sentenced to a minimum of 11 years in prison.

Pearce carried out the attack on his 17th birthday in July last year, after researching rape online.

He denied meaning to kill the woman, but admitted two counts of rape, causing grievous bodily harm with intent and stealing her handbag.

Following a trial at Leicester Crown Court, he was found guilty of attempted murder, having left his victim with her life “hanging by a thread”.

Sentencing Pearce to life with a minimum term of 11 years at the Old Bailey, Justice Haddon-Cave said Pearce was “exceptionally dangerous” and attacked the woman with “animalistic savagery”.

Mr Haddon-Cave said Pearce had carried out a “predatory attack” with a sexual or sadistic nature and had “intended to silence the victim forever”.

He said: “The defendant set out that evening to mark his 17th birthday to find a woman to attack and violently rape.

“He can be seen on CCTV circling the park and hunting [the victim] down as she walked through the park. The attack itself was of animalistic savagery. The offending was exceptionally serious.”

The court heard Pearce had dragged the victim into undergrowth in Leicester’s Victoria Park and hit her over the head with a concrete slab.

The start of his attack was witnessed by youths in the park nearby who called police. But a police patrol was unable to find anything because they could not give a precise location, the court heard.

About an hour later, a passing cyclist saw a pool of fresh blood and a hair clip on the ground.

The judge said she showed great bravery in going into the bushes to investigate and comfort the victim before emergency services arrived.

The victim, in her twenties, was rushed to hospital with horrific head injuries.

The following day, police circulated a “remarkably clear” CCTV image of Pearce, running towards her holding the slab.

His family recognised him and contacted police following the media appeal.

The victim awoke from a coma weeks later, unaware of what had happened.

In a statement read out at the Old Bailey before sentencing, she said she was left “mentally and physically scarred” by the incident.

“I do not remember screaming when I was assaulted though I am aware that screams were reported to the police by various people that night.

“My screams did not stop my attacker from causing me further harm and nor did they help me be found so I could receive medical care I needed.

“Knowing that my screams did not change anything for me that night continues to trouble me.”

She described how her life and ambitions had been “put on hold by Charlie Pearce’s criminal actions”.

“The six months which have now passed since I was discharged from hospital amounts to an ongoing period of time that can never be gotten back, time which has been taken from me and from how I live my life, without my permission and against my wishes.

“I am reminded on a daily basis – and sometimes multiple times a day – of the extensive trauma my body has endured and my mind cannot remember happening to me.”

Pearce’s victim said she still suffers from jaw pain, loss of hearing in her right ear and has bald patches.

They were all “physical reminders of the damage that was done to me by a complete stranger when I was walking home,” she said.

She went on: “I am mentally scarred as well as physically scarred. I have had thoughts about hurting myself and ending my life because I feel that I cannot live with the knowledge I have that what happened to me has happened to me.”

In mitigation, Phillip Bradley QC said: “She was the innocent victim of violence that was as gratuitous as it was unprovoked.” Pearce accepted he was “entirely responsible” for that violence, he said.

The seven-and-a-half years’ custody for the rapes will run concurrently to his life sentence.

Additional reporting by PA