A man accused of pushing a schoolboy over the edge of a 100ft cliff after the child tried to stop him raping his sister, told the girl he was going to ‘get rid of her brother’, a jury was told.
Anthony Stocks allegedly lured the 10-year-old boy on a trip to London to see the Chelsea football stadium, as he knew the boy was a keen Chelsea supporter.
After the trip, it’s alleged 54-year-old Stocks then took the boy to Brighton and pushed him off a cliff with the intention of killing him.
A few nights before the trip, Stocks reportedly approached the girl and told her: ‘I’m going to push him off a cliff. I want to get rid of him so we can be together.’
The girl, who was aged under 13 years when Stocks molested her, said: ‘Don’t do it, or I’ll speak up,’ before she warned her little brother not to go with Stocks.
The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told police: ‘I told him not to go to London because I knew that he (Stocks) was going to push him off a cliff.
‘But he (the brother) said: “No, I want to go to London”.’
Jurors heard during the case opening speech at Oxford Crown Court that Stocks had previously taken the boy to a quarry in Oxfordshire and ‘contemplated’ pushing the boy off the cliffs there, before changing his mind.
This week, the jury has heard several recorded interviews the girl victim gave to the police over the course of last year.
In those interviews, the girl said Stocks would ‘follow her’ outside her home and take her to the ‘back of garages’ to kiss her and touch her on her private parts.
During the abuse, Stocks would often tell the child he loved her, but the girl told police she was ‘frightened’ by Stocks and spoke to no-one about the alleged sexual assaults she was going through – except her little brother.
Asked why she told her brother, the girl replied: ‘So he would help me.’
Yesterday, the court heard how witnesses heard screams before Stocks allegedly threw the child off the cliff.
Prosecutor Zoe Johnson said: ‘Miraculously he did not die, but was very seriously injured and had to be airlifted to hospital in London.
‘Initially, it was believed that what had happened to him was a dreadful accident – but investigations revealed a different and much darker picture.’
Ms Johnson said Stocks did not run away from the scene but had instead joined the various members of the public that came to the child’s aid, the jury heard.
Stocks has been remanded in custody because he could not afford to travel to Oxford every day from his address in Goring-on-Thames, the court heard.
The case continues.
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