Sheffield dad guilty of raping teenager
Crime:Latest news.
A DAD has been warned he is facing a lengthy jail term after he was found guilty of grabbing a 17-year-old girl on a Sheffield street, frog-marching her into a nearby wood, and raping her.
Liam Murphy, aged 34, ordered the terrified teenager to the ground, put his hand over her mouth and told her not to scream, then raped her.
Jurors at Sheffield Crown Court found Murphy, of Holgate Close, Parson Cross, guilty of the attack in Scraith Wood, Shirecliffe.
After the hearing, the victim’s relatives wept with relief outside court.
The girl told police she had been at a party in the Herries Road area with her boyfriend on the night of the attack.
He had walked her part of the way home before she told him she would be ‘alright’ to walk the last stretch alone.
In her police interview, which was video-recorded, the victim said she did not scream because she was in fear for her life.
But she said she started crying as soon as her attacker grabbed her arm.
She said: “He didn’t hold it tight, but I just followed whatever he said because I was scared.
“I told him to stop. I must have let him do it because I was scared.
“I did not want it to happen, but I let it happen because I was scared.
“I asked him to stop, but he did not listen to me.
“I think he knew, because I was crying and upset, but he didn’t listen to me.”
After the attack she said she felt ‘disgusted’ and ‘just wanted to get in the shower’.
Murphy, a warehouse worker, who has a nine-year-old daughter, denied raping the teenager and said he was at his mother’s home at the time of the attack.
He said he was looking after his daughter and mother, who was terminally ill, and was unable to leave the house. He said they’d watched a film together and then he’d watched a football match before going to bed.
But jurors heard Murphy had been dealt with by police for four previous incidents of indecent exposure in the same woods.
The incidents happened in 2006 after he was suspended from work, in 2009 after he had split up with his partner, in 2011 shortly after his mother’s diagnosis, and in February this year - all during daylight hours. Murphy, who used to work at Fletcher’s Bakery, told the jury he didn’t know why he exposed himself except to ‘relieve himself’ after suffering setbacks in his life.
Adjourning the case for sentencing, Judge Michael Murphy QC told Murphy he was facing a lengthy term behind bars.
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Saturday 25 May 2013
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