THAMES VALLEY POLICE
A man has been found guilty of raping a young girl and throwing her brother off a cliff after the boy discovered she was being abused.
Anthony Stocks tried to kill the boy near Ovingdean, close to Brighton, in September 2022.
The 54-year-old, from Goring, Oxfordshire, was found guilty of four counts of sexually assaulting a child under 13, causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity and rape of a child under 13.
He was also found guilty of attempted murder.
The boy survived the 100ft (30.5m) fall but received severe injuries.
Police called his recovery “miraculous”.
The jury heard how Stocks had told the girl about his plan, and she warned her brother.
Via pre-recorded interviews, the girl said Stocks would force her to carry out sexual acts.
It made her “frightened” and “uncomfortable” and she ended up telling her brother about “all of it… in one big go”, she said.
Afterwards her brother would then try to come between Stocks and her when he could, Oxford Crown Court heard.
The boy described how he would “interfere and stop everything – [Stocks] was really upset I think”.
Eddie Mitchell
The girl said on another day Stocks, referring to her brother, told her: “I want to get rid of him so we can be alone so [he] doesn’t interfere with us.”
She added: “All I remember is he was going to push him of a cliff.”
The girl said she was “worried” and that night warned her brother.
The boy said on the day of the attempt on his life he had been on a trip with Stocks, who is known to the family, to see his favourite football club in London, when he was then asked if he wanted to “go see a view”.
He did not remember being pushed, and the last thing he recalled was standing on the edge of the cliff, before waking up in hospital, the court heard.
A passer-by told jurors that after the near-fatal fall Stocks sat down and rolled a cigarette.
Stocks claimed the visit to the cliff top had been a last-minute change of plan.
He said they took a taxi there because it had featured in the film Quadrophenia.
He said the boy had “started getting a bit moody”, and that he warned him not to cross a safety fence close to the cliff’s edge.
Stocks will be sentenced in “due course”, the judge said.
