Court gives UK teen life sentence for teacher rape

A British court sentenced a schoolboy who raped a teacher to life imprisonment today, but said the teenager can apply for parole…

A British court sentenced a schoolboy who raped a teacher to life imprisonment today, but said the teenager can apply for parole in 4.5 years.

The boy, who was 15 when he committed the crime in September 2004, had pleaded guilty in May to oral rape.

"This was a truly dreadful crime," Judge Christopher Moss said at London's Old Bailey court.

"You subjected your victim to the terror of a physically violent and sexually degrading attack in her own classroom."

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The student attacked the 28-year-old teacher while she was marking books after classes on the second day of her employment at the Westminster City School for Boys, the court heard.

She was covered in blood with bite marks on her breasts and bruises all over her body after the 12-minute attack, during which she stabbed the 5 foot 11 inch teenager with a pen and threw furniture at him.

Police praised the woman for keeping hold of vital DNA evidence that helped them bring her attacker to justice.

Judge Moss told the schoolboy that, although he posed a "risk for the foreseeable future" to women, the sentence did not mean he would spend the rest of his life in jail.

"Life does not mean life. The object is not to throw away the key," he said.

But he added that release on parole would depend on expert opinion. The teenager had a history of anti-social and violent behaviour, the court heard.

His mother and the school's headmaster had alerted social services about him because they could not cope with his behaviour.