After meeting her on Snapchat, an internet predator abducted and s*xually assaulted a 12-year-old girl.
John Phoenix from Leigh, Manchester, piled the girl with Jagerbomb at a nightclub until 3 am, after he sent a taxi to pick her up from her family home.
He made her perform a ‘long’ kiss with his girlfriend at the club, and then brought her back to his apartment in a drunken coma.
The 30-year-old assaulted the girl while she was laying unconscious in his bed, and she discovered that he had intercourse with her 14 hours later, when she woke up.
The victim was rescued from his apartment by the police, following a three-day search after her mother reported her missing on the night she was picked up by the taxi.
Officers had made a public appeal for information during the hunt, and Phoenix saw a picture of her on social media which confirmed she was 12.
He asked her if that was her on the picture, and she answered ‘yes’, but he still kept her in his apartment while he went out with his friends. He claimed that he thought the girl was 17 when he got arrested, and she has since tried to hang herself.
The girl’s mother said in a statement:
“This is every parent’s worst nightmare and I feel like I have failed in my parental duties. I felt so angry when he said that he thought she was 17. I am so worried about her, I have even contemplated sleeping by the front door just in case she tries to leave again.”
“She is so precious to me and I don’t want to hear how she blames herself for what happened and how she wants to die. When I found out what the female did to my daughter as well, I felt sick. I found it hard to comprehend.”
The girl said that what happened with John Phoenix will change her forever. She thought he was her friend, and she will not refer to it as s*x but she will refer to it as the mean thing, because it was a very mean thing to do.
“I was so upset with myself because I didn’t think an adult of John’s age would ever do anything like that to a 12-year-old.
If I don’t really know what John wanted then how will I be able to judge anybody else in the future. I feel like I will be in the dark.”
Phoenix has been jailed for 14 years after he admitted s*xual assault at Bolton Crown Court, and he was found guilty of child abduction at an earlier hearing.
Stacey Westwood, 29, his girlfriend, also admitted s*xual assault and was jailed for 2 years.
The girl’s ordeal began last year, when she met Phoenix on Snapchat and they swapped messages for two weeks. He invited her out for an evening at Cafe Stella club in Leigh, he ordered a taxi to come to her house and bring her to his apartment. She arrived there, he got changed and they went to Cafe Stella.
He and Stacey Westwood bought alcoholic drinks and gave them to the victim. At around 3 am they left the club, and they brought the very drunk victim with them. She woke up at around 5 pm the other day, and said that her vagina felt sore. He saw a picture of a missing 12-year-old on social media and asked her if that was her, to which she answered “yes”. The police came on September 24, and found her at his apartment. The defendant said that he did not know her age and thought she was 17. He claimed that he did not have intercourse with her, but his semen was found in her vagina. The victim tried to hang herself after the incident.