Paul South has been jailed for 28 years for a horrific campaign of abuse against two girls (Picture: Leicester Mercury/BPM Media)

A ‘controlling’ pervert raped a teenage girl as she comforted a crying baby in its bed during a harrowing ‘campaign of rape’.

Paul South, 55, of Beatrice Road, Newfoundpool, Leicester, also took another victim to a building site where he raped her in a large concrete tube.

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South started abusing the two girls when they were as young as five and continued until they were 15.

He switched from molesting them to raping them when one victim was seven and the other was 10.


On one occasion he assaulted both girls at the same time, raping one while indecently touching the other girl.

Leicester Crown Court heard how South started abusing the two girls when they were as young as five and continued until they were 15 (Picture: PA Archive)

Phillip Gibbs, prosecuting, said: ‘He told them they would not be believed because they were children.



‘During what can only be called a campaign of rape, the defendant would tell her she was damaged goods and no one would want her.’

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The abuse only came to light recently and he had initially denied all the offences after his arrest in November 2016.

But he admitted four charges of rape against one girl and three against the other, as well as seven other offences of sexual abuse, as his trial was due to begin at Leicester Crown Court yesterday.

In a statement read out in court, one victim said: ‘For me, school was nothing but a nightmare. I started smoking and using cannabis at 13, drinking at 15.

‘I also started self-harming to cope with the thoughts constantly going round in my head. I began suffering with depression and anxiety and left school with nothing.

‘He not only took my childhood, he also took my future.’

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The second victim said: “I feel disgusted with myself. I feel dirty and used. There are no men that I trust and I feel I never will.’

Judge Martin Hurst sentenced South to 28 years in prison.

He said: ‘The corruption of their minds and bodies was total and extreme. You controlled them by telling them they wouldn’t be believed.

‘You raped one of your victims while she was trying to keep the baby she was looking after quiet in front of her. You stole their childhood from them.

‘Their adulthood is severely corrupted and affected by what you did. Both have engaged in self-harm, both have repressed the experiences they suffered at your hands. This is severe psychological injury.’

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