A man who raped a three-year-old girl after she briefly got separated from her parents during a day out in the Isle of Wight has been jailed for nine years.
Graham Medway, 62, attacked the girl who had been enjoying a sunny day out with her family at Yarmouth’s popular Fort Victoria Country Park in August last year, a court heard.
Her parents said the incident had changed their daughter, adding: “This is something we are going to have to live with forever.”
The court heard how the girl’s parents had lost sight of her as she ran along an uneven path ahead of them.
It was then that she was attacked by Medway, prosecutor David Richards said.
Her parents, who had been searching for her, found her around eight minutes later.
Medway, from the Freshwater area of the island, pleaded guilty to the rape of a child at Isle of Wight Crown Court.
His defence barrister Elizabeth Bussey-Jones cited his guilty plea and added: “He knows that nothing he can say or do will undo the harm that he has done and the worry that the family feel they will continue to experience.”
In a moving statement read out in court, the girl’s mother said: “We as parents have to live with this forever and are worried about the consequences this will have for our family in the long term.
“When we go out for a family walk I am badly on edge.”
Judge Roger Hetherington told Medway: “I have little doubt that you were loitering in the park area waiting for this sort of opportunity…
“You present a significant risk to members of the public of serious harm by the commission of further specified offences.”
Medway was handed a nine-year prison sentence, with a further five years of extended licence upon his release.
He will serve at least two thirds of the jail term before he can be considered for parole.
