September 2014
Child rapist caught after GP questions facing a long stretch in prison – Guilty
A CHILD rapist has been told he is facing a substantial jail term after he was found guilty by a jury.
Terrence Tucker, aged 48, went on trial at Truro Crown Court accused of raping the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on dates between 2007 and 2012.
Tucker, from Liskeard, who denied three counts of sexual activity with a child and four of rape, was found guilty on all counts by a jury last Wednesday.
Following the verdicts, Judge Simon Carr thanked the jury for carefully considering the case which he said had been challenging and upsetting.
He said: “I will remand in custody. He faces a very, very substantial prison sentence. It is a question of length.”
The court previously heard that the girl reported Tucker to the police after she was asked questions by her doctor.
In her closing speech, Mary McCarthy, for the prosecution, urged the jury not to have any fixed assumptions about how people would or would not behave if they had been raped.
She said: “If you are dealing with a young person, their perceptions of what is happening, particularly at the start, can be very confused.”
Ms McCarthy said the girl described “quite vividly” to police one occasion when Tucker had tried to rape her and was on top of her, kneeling on her knees, with his hands on her breasts.
The girl told officers that Tucker was disturbed during the incident when someone had called out to her but described other times when he did rape her.
Robert Linford, for the defence, described the victims’ evidence as unreliable, pointing to differences in the accounts she had given. initially gave to police and what she said in court.
He said: “[Her evidence was] shot through with inconsistencies, with improbabilities and a biological impossibility.”
After the jury convicted Tucker, of Golitha Rise, Mr Linford asked for the case to be adjourned for the preparation of medical reports and said that his client suffered from two conditions, one of which was likely to affect his lifespan.
Judge Carr agreed and Tucker is due to appear before Exeter Crown Court for sentence on October 17.
