Basildon man found guilty of five child sex offences

Terry Park, 30, of no fixed abode, admitted during a trial at Southend Crown Court that he had given his teenage victim cannabis, but denied any sexual impropriety.

He suggested at trial that he was being framed.

Confronted with photographs found on his mobile phone of his victim in bed, he said they “looked staged” and somebody else must have taken them on his device.

“I am not a monster,” he pleaded from the witness box. “Everything is being taken out of context and you’re twisting it to make me look like some kind of monster.”

He also claimed he was incapable of committing the crimes because he had crushed his right hand in an accident and had no strength in it.

“I never pinned her down, I never raped her and I never left those bruises on her,” he testified.

But a jury disagreed, finding him guilty of one count of raping a girl under 16 and four counts of assaulting the same girl by penetration.

The trial heard the girl’s allegations were corroborated in part by messages she had sent at the time, to Park and to others.

Park and his victim had been in touch with one another via Snapchat.

He claimed at trial that some of the messages had been either faked or heavily edited.

“Those messages ain’t all the messages,” he protested. “Half of them have been picked and selected to make me look like something I’m not.”

After the girl reported Park to police, he was arrested and questioned, answering “no comment” to all questions before being released on bail.

He then messaged a loved one suggesting he was going to end his life, as it was “better if I’m not here anymore… I’m just so sorry”.

Questioned about those messages and why he hadn’t denied the allegations within them, Park claimed he couldn’t remember writing them.

He will be sentenced on December 5.