by A 10-year-old boy was thrown over a 100ft cliff and survived the fall after trying to stop a man who was raping his sister, a jury heard.
Anthony Stocks, 54, is accused of taking the boy to the top of a cliff in Brighton, East Sussex and throwing him over the edge after the child tried to stop him from raping his underage sister. He denies all charges.
Oxford Crown Court heard that the incident happened before the eyes of a witness who was walking at the foot of the great white chalk cliffs when he heard a “shriek” and saw “a small figure falling as if it had been thrown from the cliff .”
Stocks, described in court as manipulative and selfish by the prosecution, stood before the jury accused of the rape of a girl under the age of 13 and the attempted murder of the 10-year-old boy – charges he denies.
Prosecutor Zoe Johnson, opening the case, told the jury: “The defendant forced a girl under the age of 13 to have sexual contact with him, knowing it was wrong.
“The boy started trying to intervene. Unbeknownst to the boy’s mother, the defendant took him to Brighton and particularly to the cliffs.
“That afternoon, the boy fell 100 feet from the edge of the cliff onto the concrete path below.
“Miraculously, he didn’t die, but he was seriously injured and had to be airlifted to hospital in London. Initially, it was believed to be a horrific accident – but investigations revealed a different and much darker picture.”
The prosecutor told the jury that Stocks deliberately pushed the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, off the edge of the cliff with the intention of killing him.
“The defendant tried to murder him by pushing him off the cliff,” she explained to the jury. “The defendant may have immediately regretted what he had done – but at the moment he pushed the victim, it was the culmination of a plan to get the boy out of the way so that he could no longer interfere. “
She added that the attempted murder was “planned” as Stocks had previously taken the boy to a quarry in Oxfordshire and “considered” pushing the boy off the cliff, before changing his mind.
The twice-married defendant, from Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, took the boy by train from London and arrived in Brighton on the evening of the alleged offence, which took place in the early 2020s.
An eye witness was walking with a friend towards the stairs of the cliff when he saw the boy and the defendant walking on the grass bed and heading towards the top of the cliffs.
“The boy put his hands out as if he were balancing; he looked like he was having fun,” the prosecutor said. “The defendant was walking behind him and was matching his speed.”
The jury heard that Mr Boulding and his friend made their way back to the undercliff and noticed a crowd of people. When they got closer, they realized they were surrounded by the child who was “clearly in a bad state” – but still alive.
The prosecutor also said Stock did not run from the scene but instead joined the various members of the public who came to the child’s aid, the jury heard.
“The defendant spoke to a number of people at the scene, civilians and members of the emergency services.” Jurors heard he was inconsistent in his account of what happened and rolled a cigarette and looked at his phone.
The court heard that the child’s injuries were very serious, including several deep lacerations to his scalp, scratches to his chest, multiple bruises, multiple fractures to his left arm, and an imbalance to his left shoulder.
He was sedated, his arm was put into a splint and he was airlifted to St George’s Hospital in Tooting, London where he was to be resuscitated before being placed in a medical coma.
Due to the “extremely high impact trauma” the boy suffered, he has no memory of the fall itself, the jury heard.
The defendant, originally from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, was first arrested shortly after the fall on suspicion of child neglect and causing or permitting serious injury to a child.
He told police he asked the boy if he wanted to go to the beach, before taking him to the top of the cliffs near Brighton Marina.
The defendant said he sat on a bench and smoked a cigarette while the boy stood at the edge of the cliffs. The prosecutor continued: “Mr Stocks pointed his head and suddenly, the boy was gone. The defendant thought he was hiding. He ran and found him at the bottom of the cliff.”
Stock was arrested again on May 12 last year on suspicion of sexual activity with a child under 13 and rape of a child under 13.
At the start of the interview with the police his lawyer read a prepared statement on behalf of the defendant in which he stated: “I am not sexually attracted to children and I have not attempted to engage in sexual activity with children nor have I initiated sexual activity with children.”
Afterwards, he refused to answer the officers’ questions. Stocks was arrested again on 23 November 2023 on suspicion of attempted murder.
The trial is to begin again.
