"Sick rapist picked 13-year-old girl up for sex before school"

Bogdan Bernavic repeatedly raped the girl, plying her with vodka and introducing her to Class A drugs



A man who fled to Romania before he was due to stand trial for repeatedly raping a 13-year-old girl was recaptured as he tried to catch another flight to Spain.

After being brought back to this country, Bogdan Bernavic, who had been tried and convicted in his absence of two charges of rape, was jailed for 18 years.

The 25-year-old, who at the time lived on Old Church Road, Coventry, was ordered to register as a sex offender for life, and also given a six-month consecutive sentence for failing to attend his trial at Warwick Crown Court in January.

Jailing Bernavic, Judge Anthony Potter said he was satisfied he had been "deliberately looking for young vulnerable females to use for your own sexual gratification".

The judge added: “Thereafter, she was someone you treated like a chattel. She was just someone to be used and abused by you."

Bernavic had been due to stand trial with two of his cousins - 20-year-old Adi-Cosmin Scripcariu, of Churchill Avenue, Coventry and Wilson Surugiu, 19, of Clay Lane, Coventry - but only Surugiu attended.

Surugiu, who it was said had pestered the girl into having sex with him at his home, was cleared of sexual activity with a child after he argued he believed she was 16.

The jury was unable to reach a verdict on whether Scripcariu had raped the girl when they had sex in a car near the canal basin in Coventry.

Jailing Bernavic, Judge Potter told him: “I am satisfied you were deliberately looking for young vulnerable females to use for your own sexual gratification.

“It would have been obvious to you just how vulnerable she was. I am satisfied you cynically exploited that.

“On the first occasion you and others fed her so much vodka she was paralytic. You ignored her protests that she had already had sex that night with someone to whom she had lost her virginity.

“Thereafter, she was someone you treated like a chattel. She was just someone to be used and abused by you.

“You introduced her to class A drugs, giving her four lines of cocaine on one occasion, and you raped her after that. Since then, she was taking drugs to dull the pain you and others had caused her.”

He should be deported and never be allowed to return to this country.

He should serve his sentence in his country of origin, and the full one at that!