Girl tells court how she was choked, tied up and then raped in Gosport

Portsmouth Crown Court heard how Kieran Corless, 18, entered the home of the victim – who can’t be identified for legal reasons– and subjected her to a three-and-a-half-hour ordeal.

Despite her desperate pleas begging for mercy, Corless refused and choked the girl before tying up her hands and feet and raping her.

Prosecutor Mary Aspinall-Miles told the jury the attack had left the victim in tears.

‘She was crying throughout all of this,’ she said.

‘She told him at that point in time, “Kieran, you’re raping me, why are you raping me?”.

The attack took place on the morning of November 13, 2015, when the girl had been home alone.

Ms Aspinall-Miles said that days before this, the accused had threatened to put a firework through the letterbox of her family home.

In a harrowing police interview, recorded hours after the attack, the girl – who is known to Corless – told how she was scared of him.

She described answering the door with a knife behind her back because she feared what he would do to her.

After he discovered the blade, an argument began.

In the two-hour interview, which was played in court, the girl said the defendant snatched her phone and stopped her escaping.

He then started to choke her before going to the bathroom to get two dressing gown belts, which he used to tie her up.

He then stripped her and raped her while she was screaming for him to stop.

In the recording, she told police: ‘I was just screaming, “You don’t want to do this, you don’t want to do this!”.

‘He bent me over and I remember thinking, “I think he is going to rape me, I know he is going to rape me in a minute”.’

She added: ‘I knew he was going to kill me. I remember thinking so clearly in my head, “I am going to die. I know I am going to die”.’

She managed to free her arm and wrenched his ear, gripping it tightly.

After this, she describes how Corless stopped the assault and broke down before attempting to kill himself, first crushing prescription pills into water and drinking them and then attempting to hang himself.

At this point, the girl fled, seeking the safety of neighbours where she called police.

Ms Aspinall-Miles described how when police arrived at the victim’s home, they found a ‘sobbing and hysterical Mr Corless’.

Corless is charged with rape, assault by penetration, attempting to render someone unconscious, insensible or incapable of resistance with intent and putting a person in fear of violence through harassment.

Corless, of no fixed abode, but formerly of Lee-on-the-Solent, denies all the charges.

(Proceeding)