Taxi Driver Convicted Of Raping Girl For 14 Years, Forced Sex With Dog, Live Streamed Attacks — Then Escaped

David Hart, a 60-year-old taxi driver from Morriston, Wales, escaped from police custody on Tuesday, the same day a jury found him guilty on 16 charges of what a judge called “some of the gravest sexual offenses,” according to a report by Wales Online. And those offenses were indeed grave, involving repeated rapes and assaults against a young girl — a horror that endured over a 14-year period from 2001 to 2015, starting when the girl was as young as 11 years old.

Not only did the now-convicted pedophile sexually assault the girl — whose name has not been made public to protect her privacy — multiple times over that 14-year span, but according to evidence given in Swansea Crown Court, Hart would live stream video of himself raping her, into private internet chatrooms frequented by his fellow twisted pedophiles.

According to statements given to police by the victim, now an adult, “a few hundred people would watch” her suffering the violations committed by Hart on camera. But Hart’s perversions didn’t stop there. According a report published by the United Kingdom news site Metro, the woman told police that Hart set up a “portacabin” — that is, a small shed that is simple to transport and assemble — and inside that module he forced her to engage in sexual acts with a dog.

Have you seen David Hart, 60, from #Morriston #Swansea? #Wanted on warrant. Contact 101 or @Wales_CS asap with info ^CL pic.twitter.com/dfPas5fAyA

— South Wales Police (@swpolice) September 27, 2017

“He made me have sex with a dog and wanted me to do it again,” the victim told the Swansea jury.

“It got to the point I had to hurt the dog to stop him. It was disgusting. I can’t put into words how much that hurt.”

She told police, in interviews read in court, that Hart’s attacks began in private, and that his first rape of her which occurred when Hart forced the then-preteen girl against the wall of a stable and took her virginity, according to a Daily Mirror account of her statements. As the attacks continued, Hart developed the practice of broadcasting his assaults against her, live online to a potentially global audience of pedophiles.

Tuesday was the final day of Hart’s trial, but he claimed to have fallen ill and was taken to a Swansea hospital. When police officers went to retrieve him so that he could face the jury and hear their verdicts, Hart had escaped from the medical facility.

South Wales Police immediately began a manhunt which they “treated as a top priority,” the investigators said, according to a BBC report.

But the trial continued even without Hart present. In the end, also on Tuesday, the jury returned 16 guilty verdicts against the fleeing taxi driver. They found Hart guilty on 12 counts of rape, two counts of “indecent assault,” one of “assault by penetration” and one final count of “assault occasioning actual bodily harm.”

Perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect of the case was the psychological trauma inflicted on the victim, who told the court that despite Hart’s obvious depravities, she could not help but feel she did something wrong to cause her 14-year torment.

“I blame myself. I never did enough to stop him. I had opportunities to stop him but I was too afraid,” she told investigators. “I hate myself. I feel disgusted I let him do these things. I dream of it. Every single night I go through that.”

As for Hart, he denied all of the charges and claimed that he was physically incapable of sexual activity during the period when he allegedly committed the rapes, according to a report in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper. A character witness in the trial testified that Hart, who had no previous criminal record, was “a polite man, very happy to help. I’ve never heard him raise his voice, even to his dog.”

South Wales Police caught up to Hart in Morriston, a suburb of Swansea, on Wednesday, re-arresting him. While his sentence has not yet been handed down, the judge in the case said that Hart faces “many years” behind bars.

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