Teenage girl was raped after walking home late in Kidderminster underpass (From Kidderminster Shuttle)

Teenage girl was raped after walking home late in Kidderminster underpass

2:56pm Wednesday 19th September 2012 in Local

A TEENAGE girl was grabbed and raped by a masked man as she walked home late at night in a Kidderminster underpass.

She was dragged to a river bank and forced to strip before intercourse took place, said John Butterfield, prosecuting at Worcester Crown Court .

He said the 18-year-old had gone through a "dreadful ordeal" before her attacker behaved bizarrely by thanking her and giving her a hug.

The accused, Ashley Shuck, 19, of Cobham Road, Kidderminster, pleaded not guilty to rape and assault by penetration but was convicted after a four-day trial. He was remanded in custody for sentence.

Mr Butterfield said the girl, now 19, was walking home from work in Stourport Road at 10.20pm on March 19 when she decided to use the underpass under the bus station in Worcester Road.

It was littered with broken glass and she realised she was being followed when she heard a crunching noise. She was grabbed from behind and a hand was put over her mouth to stop her screaming.

In a video-ed police interview shown to the court, she said the man was wearing a black hood with a scarf over the bottom part of his face. When she agreed not to scream, he led her out of the underpass to the bank of the river Stour. When they walked under a bridge, he made her lie down and take off most of her clothes. He bit her neck and lower body. "I was really scared," she said. "I thought he would rape me and put me in the river."

Her attacker complained that he had been mugged and lost his mobile phone. After intercourse, he thanked her, shook her hand and gave her a hug. "It was eccentric behaviour," said Mr Butterfield. Then he asked the way to the nearest train station and walked off.

Mr Butterfield said that when Shuck was arrested, he maintained he had been with a friend on that night but his semen was found on the girl and it compared with his DNA. The chance that it belonged to someone else was remote.

Shuck also had mud on his jeans and trainers which matched the spot where the alleged attack had taken place. But he claimed he had been playing football with friends in St George's Park before falling into a stream and getting muddied.

He had drunk eight pints of lager but it had not affected him. When he had seen the subway cordoned off by police on his way home, he heard stories that someone had been beaten up, raped or murdered.

Judge Robert Juckes QC commented in his summing-up that the girl had undergone "one of the worst nightmares any person could have suffered."

He thanked the jury of five men and seven women for dealing with a difficult and stressful case. Shuck had a criminal record which began when he was 15 and included a conviction for unlawful sex with a girl. The judge said he wanted a pre-sentence report to assess Shuck's dangerousness.

As he left the dock, Shuck shouted to relatives in the public gallery that he wanted an appeal straight away.