A teenage girl who pinned a woman down on a towpat

A teenage girl who pinned a woman down on a towpath for a gang of sex attackers today (TUES) became the youngest female in Britain to be jailed for rape.

Claire Marsh, 18, laughed as she signalled the start of the attack by ripping off the 37-year-old’s top and punching her to the ground.

But today she was in tears as a judge jailed her for seven years and told her she attacked someone in ‘such a vicious and utterly merciless way as was truly beyond belief.

‘

Marvin Edwards, 18, and 15-year-old Nathan Hewitt took it in turns to rape singer Delphi Newman, who has waived her right to anonymity.

Edwards and Hewitt showed no emotion as they were both sentenced to five years detention.

In the midst of her agony Marsh mercilessly kicked Ms Newman in the head screaming: ‘Go on, do her.

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The victim fled naked along the Grand Union Canal in Ladbroke Grove, west London, through the streets into the arms of her shocked boyfriend.

Police estimated that there were 14 youths present
many of whom, like Edwards and Marsh were members of the Drayford Crew, a mob of jobless or truanting youngsters hanging around on the Lydford Estate in
west London.

Only five were ever charged and two boys aged 15 and 16 were later cleared of any involvement in the attack.

Marsh, wearing a light brown tank top, dark slacks and mules with no socks was in floods of tears today.

The court had heard she is due to have her 19 week pregnancy terminated tomorrow.

(Weds)

Passing sentence Judge Pontius told Marsh, Edwards and Hewitt: ‘The way you treated your victim on the night of July 21/22 last year would have been horrifying enough if you were all adults.

‘But for teenagers to attack someone in such a vicious and utterly merciless way is truly beyond belief.

‘

‘Delphi Newman, a thoroughly decent intelligent woman was on her way home after an enjoyable night when you attacked her.

‘Unaware and trusting she felt happy to spend time with you.

Her evidence graphically described the way the atmosphere grew more increasingly intimidatory with your group of 10 to 12 moving closer and closer to her until she realised something very serious was going to happen.

‘Her sustained ordeal was without doubt terrifying to an extreme degree.

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Judge Pontius told Marsh: ‘You were involved in the removal of her clothing.

With at least two others you pinned her to the ground so Edwards and Hewitt could rape her without resistance.

‘When she made a run for it she was chased and pushed to the ground again.

‘She told police there was a lot of yanking and grabbing.

‘

Quoting her evidence the judge said: ‘They were just grabbing my limbs, dragging me along the ground like an animal.

‘Eventually she escaped and ran home naked.

‘

Turning to Edwards, Judge Pontius said: ‘You were fully aware of what was happening and knew exactly what you wanted to do.

‘She described you coming towards her as she lay helpless with a smile on your face and unzipping your trousers.

‘

Judge Pontius told the three that they would have faced sentences running into double figures if they were adults.

But he took into account their youth and the fact that Edwards has a mental age of just 12 in reducing their terms behind bars.

Judge Pontius told Marsh that while she could not commit rape as a woman she ‘played her part by ‘aiding, abetting and encouraging’ the others to do so.

‘As a woman, an intelligent and well brought up one at that, there can be no doubt you appreciated all too well the full horror of this attack upon another woman.

‘However, as an act of mercy I do reduce the sentence otherwise appropriate.

‘ the judge, added sentencing her to seven years detention in a young offenders’ institute.

The court heard Ms Newman was targeted after meeting two youngsters on a footbridge over the canal on July 22 last year.

She was a ‘bit tipsy’ after an evening out with friends and when the pair offered to share their cannabis she ‘stupidly’ followed them for about ten minutes.

‘It was such a blinding evening.

They asked if I wanted to have a (cannabis) spliff with them,’
she recalled.

‘With the weather being nice, I stupidly went with them.

‘

They chose a spot outside the Sainsbury’s supermarket in Ladbroke Grove on the far side of the canal.

As they crossed the bridge, they were joined by a further group of around eight young people, mostly young men, who emerged from the shadows.

But the happy evening began to disintegrate into a nightmare when one of the gang ‘savaged’ Ms Newman for cigarettes.

Marsh picked her pockets, and others then threw cigarette butts in her hair.

She was pushed in the canal and when she tried to clamber out one of the attackers knocked her back with a kung-fu kick.

Terrified and soaked through by the filthy water Ms Newman was hauled onto the canalside and her wet clothes were torn from her body.

‘They were dragging me along the ground kicking and having a go,’ Ms Newman said.

Marsh was ‘laughing and encouraging’ the first rapist, she recalled.

‘One of the black guys with a smile on his face came towards me.

He unzipped his trousers.

‘I was held down by my shoulders and my legs were being held apart.

‘One just raped me and got up.

Then another came into my view and had a go the same way.

‘

While she was being raped, a youth knelt beside her and performed a sexual act on himself.

‘They were grabbing my limbs like I was an animal.

I think I was just screaming by then, it might have frightened them into letting go.

I got up and I just bolted, I didn’t look back.

Naked or not, I ran home.

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After appeals on TV’s Crimewatch, the police breakthrough came when they secured the testimony a 14-year-old who was prepared to give evidence against the others.

He was to tell the court: ‘It was Claire Marsh who ripped off her top so the group could see her breasts.

‘Another boy pulled off her trousers and got in between her legs.

Claire held the woman’s arms above her head.

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He said Hewitt also forced the woman to perform oral sex.

Afterwards in a nearby housing estate one of the boys boasted: ‘We got shiners’ meaning they had oral sex.

Two weeks after the attack the woman found she was pregnant and had to wait for 12 long weeks before it was confirmed the baby was her boyfriend’s.

Marsh, of Windsor Court, Laleham Walk, Margate, Kent, denied rape.

Edwards, of Servius Court, Augustus Close, Brentford, Middx, and Hewitt, of (39) Central Park Road Plaistow, east London, admitted rape on the first day of the trial.

Marsh, a part time bingo hall worker and former pupil of Copland School, Wembley, has never shown any remorse for the attack.

It was the first time Hewitt could be named as Judge Pontius today ruled that an order protecting his identity should be lifted.

Mr Simon Wild, defending Edwards, said he was born with a birth defect because of his mother’s alcoholism and is of borderline intelligence.

As a child he was sexually abused and allowed to look at hard core pornographic videos, the court heard.

‘One video shows a woman having sex.

Another scene shows her being tied to a bed and raped,’ the barrister added.

Edwards he said, had been a virgin before the attack.

Mr Mark Milligan-Smith for Hewitt, whose mother looked on from the public gallery said: ‘What happened was totally out of character.

‘Plainly in this case there was an element of the influence of others.

‘

Mr Ian Morley, for Marsh said she had been ‘an entirely pleasant, reliable and nice girl who worked hard in her studies.

‘

Her parents, who were also in court, simply cannot explain what went so terribly wrong.

Mr Morley said Marsh had been living rough when she fell in with the Drayford Crew.

‘If she had not met them, no police station would ever have come across Claire Marsh,’ Mr Morley said.

She has become ‘notorious’ in jail and took the decision to have her child aborted because she claimed she would not feel safe on the pregnant mother’s wing.

‘She would have liked to have had the child.

This is an unhappy decision for her.

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Mr Morley added: ‘This is not a person who is inherently bad.

but a person who went wrong on the night in question in bad company.

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Speaking outside court Detective Inspector Mike Christiensen of Notting Hill police announced Ms Newman gave birth to baby daughter by her long term partner three weeks ago.

He said mother and daughter were both doing well.

‘The sentences passed today reflect how seriously people take offences of this nature,’ the detective said.

‘If young people get together and commit offences of his nature they can expect lengthy sentences.

‘My sympathy is with the victim.

It was a traumatic experience for her and she will take a long, long time to get over it.

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DI Jo Oakley, who dealt with Marsh personally added
she was not surprised Marsh was given a longer sentence than those who actually carried out the rape.

‘I think the sentence was appropriate for what she was involved in,’ the officer said.

‘The fact is she was quite a lot older than any of the others in the group.

‘

‘She is quite a hard-faced individual.

She has shown no remorse throughout.

She always denied any involvement in anything.

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ends