Jury to consider verdict in rape case trial (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Jury to consider verdict in rape case trial

8:00am Tuesday 19th February 2013 in News

A jury was today due to start considering its verdicts in the trial of a Bradford man accused of 13 offences of rape against two girls.

Jeffrey Gilbert, 56, is accused of sexually abusing one child when she was aged between seven and 14 and a second youngster when she was about 11, the court heard.

Gilbert, of Bronte Close, Daisy Hill, denies “regularly and repeatedly” raping the girls in Bradford in the 1990s. He has pleaded not guilty to 13 cases of rape and two cases of attempted rape.

Making his closing statement yesterday at Bradford Crown Court, prosecutor Adrian Strong said both complainants, now adults, had given similar accounts to the court.

He said: “There are big, obvious similarities about the kind of abuse they were subjected to.”

Closing the defence case, Gilbert’s barrister Gerald Hendron asked why one woman, now in her late 20s, had only recently gone to the police to make a complaint.