A man threw a 10-year-old boy off a cliff after the child tried to stop him from raping his sister, a court has heard.
Anthony Stocks, 54, allegedly took the child down to Brighton from London without his mum’s knowledge, before pushing him over the edge of a 100ft drop in front of horrified onlookers.
Witnesses describe hearing a “shriek” and seeing a “small shape” fall down the side of Ovingdean cliff face before the child hit the concrete below. The 10-year-old miraculously survived the fall.
Jurors at Oxford Crown Court heard that the incident, which took place in 2020, was initially treated as some “dreadful accident” before investigators revealed a “different and much darker picture”.
Stocks stood before the court accused of attempted murder in relation to the boy and the rape of a girl under 13. He denies all charges.
Prosecutor Zoe Johnson KC told the jury that Stocks was “grooming” the boy's sister, and claimed to his mental health worker they would “get married”.
Johnson told the court: “The defendant forced a girl under 13 to have sexual contact with him, knowing it was wrong. The boy had started to try to intervene.
“Unbeknown to the boy’s mother, the defendant then took him to Brighton and in particular, to the cliffs.”
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An eyewitness said that he spotted the boy and the man walking towards the cliff stairwell, and claimed that it looked as if the child was having fun.
“That afternoon, the boy fell 100 feet from the cliff edge onto the concrete under walk below. The defendant attempted to murder him by pushing him off the cliff,” Johnson continued.
“The defendant may have instantly regretted what he had done — but at the moment he pushed the victim, it was the climax of a plan to get the boy out of the way so he could no longer interfere.”
Johnson said that Stocks did not flee the scene but instead joined members of the public who came to the boy’s aid.
Emma Betts, another eyewitness, recalls seeing Stocks approach the seriously wounded boy and say “I told him not to go near the edge”, before proceeding to sit down and roll a cigarette.
Whilst the boy did not die, he was gravely injured with lacerations to his scalp, abrasions to his chest, multiple fractures and a deformity to his shoulder. He was airlifted to hospital where he was placed in a medically induced coma for three weeks.
Due to the “extremely high impact trauma” he does not have any memory of the fall itself, the court heard.
Stocks was arrested on May 12, 2023, on suspicion of sexual activity with a child under 13 and rape of a child under 13.
He was then re-arrested on November 23, 2023, on suspicion of attempted murder.
A police statement read out on behalf of the defendant said: “I’m not sexually attracted to children and have not tried to have or instigated sexual activity with children.”
The trial continues.
