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Married pedophile groomed girl and raped her for years after befriending her parents, gets jailed for 27 years

Cruz also persuaded the child to send him nude photographs of herself while she was on a family holiday in Florida
PUBLISHED JUN 7, 2020
(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

A 37-year-old married man was sentenced to 27 years in prison for subjecting a 10-year-old girl to years of abuse and sexual assault, reports state. The pedophile, identified as Educardo Cruz, a landscape gardener, reportedly orchestrated the abuse by befriending the little girl's parents and buying her gifts and taking her on day trips.

Cruz, in Reading, Berkshire, UK,  also persuaded the child to send him nude photographs of herself while she was on a family holiday in Florida. The girl, now 18, in her statement to the court, said: "At the time, I felt I could not speak to anyone. This made me feel more alone and I lost friends because of it. I also remember I had a very strained relationship with my parents who told me not to spend so much time with him and his family."

"I remember my self-esteem was very low, I thought I was a slag because of what I was doing with him," she added.  "When I was 13 I started having nightmares about what had happened. In the nightmares he would do to me what he had done in real life, the only difference was that the nightmares were more violent. There was a period of time when I was scared of seeing his car," the Daily Mail reported.

The teen stated that she resorted to self-harm because of the abuse and had to see a doctor because she was crying all the time. She also added that she had difficulty trusting people post the abuse.

"The abuse has made me very sad, my dad made me see the doctor because I was crying all the time. The reason I self-harm is because I feel numb and it is easier to see blood than it is to think about things I do not want to think about. It has made it impossible to trust anyone. I think what has happened has affected me at school, it makes it very difficult to concentrate on my work no matter what I am doing. He has taken a lot of my childhood away, I do not think I will ever forgive him."

The girl, who has not been identified, did not reveal her ordeal at first and the abuse was discovered by her father in 2017, who found a letter she had written about the abuse she had suffered.

Judge Heather Norton, at Reading Crown Court, denounced Cruz in her statement stating that he conducted a grooming campaign on a child which will have a lasting psychological impact.

"You and she would spend long periods in the car before she got out. What was happening in that car was sexual activity and rape. It started when she was aged 10 or 11 years old. You told her how she was special and cared for her before touching her," the judge said. "She thought it was wrong but you told her you loved her and this went on for two years. When she was 13 you told her she was ready to have sex. She wanted to make you happy so she said she would try. She asked for forgiveness every week at church. Over the course of 10 months you told her people would think she was a slag and you told her you loved her and she loved you. Even when she went on holiday you told her to send nudes photos of herself."

"Your wife, the school, even her parents started to realize there was something going on, that the relationship was unhealthy and the contact was excessive. It was stopped when you were served with a child abduction notice," Judge Heather said detailing the survivor's ordeal. "I want to make it clear to her and her parents that what happened was not in any way, shape or form, their fault. She was a child who trusted you, the blame for all that happened rests on you and you alone. You conducted a grooming campaign and your offences have had a lasting psychological effect on the victim. I am in no doubt that you present a high risk to children of all ages, you are a dangerous offender."

Cruz has been sentenced to 22 years of imprisonment along with a five-year extended period on licence and a lifelong Sexual Harm Prevention Order. 

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