A ‘monster’ who is serving a 17-year sentence for raping a five-year-old girl more than 30 years ago has had charges over and even older allegation withdrawn for legal reasons.
Eric Fletcher had been jailed in his absence in December 2015 after being convicted following a trial at Warwick Crown Court of rape and four charges of indecent assault on two girls.
He had absconded part-way through his trial earlier that year, but was finally tracked down in Eire, where he had been living, the following year and began serving his sentence.
Another alleged victim then came forward and Fletcher (57) who is from Coventry, but of Arran Quay, Dublin, was charged with three more rape allegations and two of indecent assault.
But when he first appeared at the court to be arraigned, his barrister Ian Windridge observed that the offences were said to have taken place between January 1971 and January 1974.
That would mean Fletcher would still have only been 13, even at the latest date.
And Mr Windridge pointed out that at the time, although the law changed in the 1980s, there was a presumption in law that a boy under the age of 14 could not engage in intercourse.
There was a legal presumption that a child under the age of 14 did not know the difference between right and wrong, and was therefore incapable of committing an offence.
That presumption could be rebutted only if a court was satisfied the child knew what it was doing was seriously wrong, not merely naughty or mischievous.
So Fletcher’s hearing was adjourned for the prosecution to consider those legal points.
At the resumed hearing, prosecutor Mark Williams said: “When the case was originally reviewed, his date of birth and age, and the state of the law at the time, were not taken into account.
“In respect of the offences, if they took place when the complainant said they had taken place, he would have been 11 or 12, so would have been deemed incapable of having intercourse.
“That would leave the indecent assaults. But there was a presumption that someone of that age would not have the mens rea,” the knowledge that what he was doing was wrong.
“I therefore withdraw the indictment,” added Mr Williams.
Judge Sylvia de Bertodano commented: “And he is already serving a sentence of 17 years and three months imposed in 2016.”
Fletcher had been given 17 years in his absence for raping one young girl and indecently assaulting another girl – and following his arrest in 2016 he had been given an additional three months for absconding.
The jury had heard that Fletcher indecently assaulted a five-year-old girl on at least three occasions when he was in his mid-teens in the 1970s while babysitting at her home in Coventry.
But the most serious offence, the rape, was committed against another girl when Fletcher was 19 or 20 and she was aged between five and seven.
He was again babysitting, and took her into the bathroom of her home where he made her take off her clothes and lie on the bathroom floor, and then raped her.
Two or three years later, in the early 80s, there was a further incident when he saw the girl at a flat in Coventry, when she was about eight, and performed a sex act on her.
Neither of his victims came forward at the time, or in 1986 when he was jailed for three years by a judge at Coventry Crown Court for indecently assaulting another girl.
When the girl he raped found the courage to report it to the police in 1997 and Fletcher was arrested, he denied the matter and no further action was taken at that time.
But in 2010 his first victim came forward and Fletcher was arrested as he was on his way to Eire.
He denied it and was granted bail – and a European arrest warrant was issued when he failed to surrender to his bail.
Fletcher was not arrested on that until 2013, only to be bailed by the authorities in Dublin before being arrested again and extradited. Yet despite that, he was granted bail before his trial.
The court heard the first victim has said that for years she had tried to block out what had happened – until she happened to see Fletcher in Coventry city centre and it came flooding back.
Her statement ended: “For 41 years I have been a victim of that monster’s actions. I hope one day to be the hero of my own story and change victim into victory.”
