From the Guardian
Chess star's father cleared of rape
Press Association Thursday December 14, 2006 4:28 PM
The father of a teenage chess prodigy who fell to her death from a hotel window has been cleared of repeatedly raping her when she was still a child.
Ian Gilbert denied his daughter Jessica's claims that he forced her to have sex with him in her bedroom at the family home in Woldingham, Surrey, when she was just nine years old. She told police that he raped her repeatedly until she was 13 years old.
Jessica died this year, aged 19, when she fell from an eighth-floor hotel room in Pardubice, 65 miles east of Prague, in the Czech Republic where she had been taking part in an international chess tournament.
A jury took 15 hours to find the 49-year-old not guilty of all charges of rape of Jessica while she was under 16. They also cleared him of two counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault on other people.
Gilbert remained impassive as the verdict was read out. His new wife Sally was in court to hear her husband cleared. The four-man, eight-woman jury listened to more than a month of evidence at Guildford Crown Court, in Surrey.
They heard that Jessica, a very talented chess player who represented Britain in the game, was a troubled, anxious child. Family members, including her grandfather Alan, said that they found the exceptionally clever youngster "detached".
But after he and Jessica had a row about him using her laptop, Mr Gilbert's relationship with Jessica's mother collapsed and they divorced. It was only after her father finally moved out of the family home that Jessica told her mother that he had raped her.
Mr Gilbert denied all the charges against him and said he had no idea why his daughter would hate him enough to make false rape allegations. He said she had been playing a "game of chess" against him and carefully plotting a "battle strategy" to take revenge against him after they fell out over the laptop. He told the jury that he found the accusations "disgusting" and had never had sexual thoughts about his daughter.
On a New Year's Eve night out at the end of 2003, she went out with friends and got drunk. She climbed a wall at Croydon's clock tower and threatened to jump off before her friends dragged her down. It was then that she told them the reason she wanted to die was because her father had raped her. The following year she got very drunk and again told friends that she had been raped.
This time her friends took her home and told her mother what Jessica had said. She then confronted her daughter, who said it was true. The following day she took an overdose of paracetamol but later recovered. She fell to her death in July this year, shortly before her father's trial was originally due to start, having been postponed from an original January start date.
© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2006, All Rights Reserved
More injustice. And what other people?
"Hell" isn't a strong enough word for what I wish the rest of his life to be.
Press Association Thursday December 14, 2006 4:28 PM
The father of a teenage chess prodigy who fell to her death from a hotel window has been cleared of repeatedly raping her when she was still a child.
Ian Gilbert denied his daughter Jessica's claims that he forced her to have sex with him in her bedroom at the family home in Woldingham, Surrey, when she was just nine years old. She told police that he raped her repeatedly until she was 13 years old.
Jessica died this year, aged 19, when she fell from an eighth-floor hotel room in Pardubice, 65 miles east of Prague, in the Czech Republic where she had been taking part in an international chess tournament.
A jury took 15 hours to find the 49-year-old not guilty of all charges of rape of Jessica while she was under 16. They also cleared him of two counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault on other people.
Gilbert remained impassive as the verdict was read out. His new wife Sally was in court to hear her husband cleared. The four-man, eight-woman jury listened to more than a month of evidence at Guildford Crown Court, in Surrey.
They heard that Jessica, a very talented chess player who represented Britain in the game, was a troubled, anxious child. Family members, including her grandfather Alan, said that they found the exceptionally clever youngster "detached".
But after he and Jessica had a row about him using her laptop, Mr Gilbert's relationship with Jessica's mother collapsed and they divorced. It was only after her father finally moved out of the family home that Jessica told her mother that he had raped her.
Mr Gilbert denied all the charges against him and said he had no idea why his daughter would hate him enough to make false rape allegations. He said she had been playing a "game of chess" against him and carefully plotting a "battle strategy" to take revenge against him after they fell out over the laptop. He told the jury that he found the accusations "disgusting" and had never had sexual thoughts about his daughter.
On a New Year's Eve night out at the end of 2003, she went out with friends and got drunk. She climbed a wall at Croydon's clock tower and threatened to jump off before her friends dragged her down. It was then that she told them the reason she wanted to die was because her father had raped her. The following year she got very drunk and again told friends that she had been raped.
This time her friends took her home and told her mother what Jessica had said. She then confronted her daughter, who said it was true. The following day she took an overdose of paracetamol but later recovered. She fell to her death in July this year, shortly before her father's trial was originally due to start, having been postponed from an original January start date.
© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2006, All Rights Reserved
More injustice. And what other people?
"Hell" isn't a strong enough word for what I wish the rest of his life to be.
posted by jo22 at 2:11 PM
3 Comments:
I was hoping you'd blog about this. I've heard Jessie's mum has been arrested for threatening to kill him.
I meant to get around to posting this. SO much seems to be coming up ffs!
"I've heard Jessie's mum has been arrested for threatening to kill him"
Yes, she has threatened to put the bastard out of his misery
Oh my good grief. This is so sad. I feel a continuing need to bury my head in the sand because of stories like this. Thank you for blogging it because people really should know...but I am crying right now and can't face anymore. I just read about a two year old who was raped and killed by a relative... I can't read anymore.
When is all this going to stop?
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