A man from Carlisle has heard he faces a prison sentence of “many years” after he was convicted of raping two children.
Fifty-year-old Andrew Chapman, of Warwick Square, went on trial at the city’s crown court earlier this week, having denied a total of seven charges.
This afternoon, Chapman was found guilty, unanimously, of all seven. These were two counts of raping a child aged under 13, three of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity; and two of sexual assault on a child.
Two different victims are named in the charges.
Bespectacled and wearing a dark suit, Chapman bowed his head in the court dock as the guilty verdicts were announced by the foreman of a jury comprising eight women and four men.
Judge Nicholas Barker adjourned the case until tomorrow morning for the preparation of victim impact statements. He remanded Chapman in custody and told him he faces an “inevitable” jail term that “will be measured in many years”.
Addressing jury members after Chapman had been led away, Judge Barker said it was “palpable” that they had found the case difficult. Evidence in the case had been “horrific and grossly unpleasant”, while the content of messages which were considered during the trial had been “despicable and quite repulsive”.
“You have my sympathy and you also have my thanks,” said the judge of their service on the case.
