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A paedophile who raped a girl and threw her brother off a 100ft cliff to "silence him" has been jailed for life.

Anthony Stocks tried to kill the primary school-aged boy at Ovingdean, near Brighton, in September 2022 after fearing he would be exposed as a child abuser.

But the boy survived and Stocks claimed he fell from the cliff after he took him there to see the view because it featured in the film Quadrophenia.

A jury at Oxford Crown Court found him guilty of attempted murder and sexual offences and he was told he would have to serve a minimum of 20 years.

Police said that after the girl confided in her brother, the youngster had done "everything to try and prevent the abuse carrying on".
Judge Nigel Daly said Stocks remained "utterly obsessed" with the girl and had been prepared to go to "any lengths" to stop his abuse being revealed.

He said the 54-year-old, previously of Goring in Oxfordshire, took the boy to London on a tour of football stadiums - but then to Brighton to kill him.

The boy landed on a bed of shingle and stones, a few feet from a concrete path that would have killed him instantly had he landed on that instead, the judge said.

Det Sgt Jemma Paterson, from Sussex Police, said she was "shocked" to find the boy had survived the fall on 24 September.

She described how he was screaming with pain as he was treated by paramedics at the foot of the 100ft (30.5m) cliff.

"His injuries were extensive," she said. "He was conscious and clearly in pain and those sounds will stay with me for the rest of my life."

She said a number of witnesses were also "traumatised" by what they had seen.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c903lddlpe3o