Marinoaica pulled the girl out to sea where she couldn’t “reach the bottom” before placing his hand over the mouth of the victim – who told him she couldn’t swim, the court heard
A man who raped a 15-year-old girl after taking her out of her depth in the sea has been handed a six-and-a-half year custodial sentence.
Gabriel Marinoaica, 20, of Darlaston, West Midlands, attacked the teenager off Bournemouth beach in July 2021.
He was previously found guilty of rape and three sexual assaults.
Judge Susan Evans KC told Bournemouth Crown Court: “It was a brazen attack in broad daylight with many people around.”
During the trial, prosecutors said the victim had been in the sea with her friends on Sunday 18 July and began playing with a ball with another group in the water.
After her two friends had gone back to the beach, she went to fetch the ball which had been picked up by Marinoaica.
A 20-year-old man from Walsall has been jailed for the ‘brazen’ rape of a 15-year-old girl on a Bournemouth beach. Gabriel Marinoaica carried out the attack during a busy summer’s afternoon on Sunday, July 18, 2021.
The victim had been in the sea with friends at the Dorset resort when she started playing with a ball from another group in the water, prosecutor Ellie Fargin told the trial. Jurors heard the ball went near to the defendant but he initially refused to return it to the complainant.
Ms Fargin said Marinoaica then pulled her by the arm out of her depth into the sea and groped her before raping her while putting his hand over her mouth. He was arrested 11 months later. Semen found in the complainant’s bikini matched his DNA, Ms Fargin said.
In March, a jury found Marinoaica guilty of three charges of sexual assault and the rape of the teenager. He was acquitted of a further charge of sexual assault by biting her neck.
Judge Susan Evans KC told Bournemouth Crown Court that the attack undermined the public’s sense of safety on busy beaches. She said: “Young people should be safe on a busy beach on a sunny afternoon, sadly that was not the case.”
She added: “It was a brazen attack in broad daylight with many people around. The beach should be a safe place where young people can go without fear of being raped or sexually assaulted. What you did does undermine public confidence in the safety of a public place like that.”
Judge Evans said that the defendant had behaved in a predatory manner and had used a form of “detention” by taking his victim, who could not swim, out of her depth into the sea. She said: “There is some predatory behaviour, having picked out a group of young girls to target.”
Addressing Marinoaica, she said: “You pulled her out to see to the extent she couldn’t reach the bottom and notwithstanding that she told you she couldn’t swim, you took her further out to sea. That was plainly frightening and you made her vulnerable.”
The judge said that Marinoaica ignored the victim’s pleas that she did not want to have sex and added: “You placed your hand over her mouth, you did it so she couldn’t scream or get help, you knew full well that she was not consenting.” She added that the defendant afterwards asked for the complainant’s Snapchat contacts and added: “It may have been in your mind to make it look like something consensual which it never was.”
The court heard that Marinoaica was questioned by police earlier in 2021 about an unconnected allegation of rape but no further action was taken as the sex was found to have been consensual. Judge Evans told him: “The police were involved and that interaction with the police doesn’t appear to have acted as a sufficient warning to you on how you should conduct yourself in sexual matters in the future.”
As well as the prison sentence to be served in a young offender institution, the judge made Marinoaica subject to a sexual harm prevention order for 20 years and ordered him to sign the sex offenders’ register for life. In a victim impact statement read to the court, the complainant said that she continued to suffer panic attacks and nightmares.
She said: “I find it really hard to share how I have been left feeling after that attack on me, I have tried to put it behind me but it is never not with me, it will never not be part of my life experiences, my childhood. “I have had to face and realise how my way of life has changed, I have been changed, it has left me overwhelmed.
“I used to have a huge love for the beach and the sea but I have lost it and I am left feeling uneasy. I feel so unsafe in the water now, going into the water makes me feel sick, I do not think I will ever be able to go in without someone with me as I am full of fear it will happen again.”
Marinoaica, of Darlaston, Walsall, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison.
Bournemouth Beach: Man given custodial sentence for raping teen in sea – BBC News