🚨 Child rapist sentenced to over 13 years in prison

A 34-year-old man, Travis Arlington Ebanks, has been sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison for grooming and raping a child when she was just eleven and twelve years old. The court recently released the ruling, which was made in April, after Ebanks was found guilty in September last year. The details of the case revealed that Ebanks had groomed the young girl from when she was nine years old, using a Snapchat account and pretending to be a 14-year-old boy. Despite the child blocking him multiple times, Ebanks continued to create new accounts to pursue her. 🏛️

Ebanks was found to have planned the offences, raping the girl in the back of a borrowed car after luring her to meet him by threatening to reveal her secrets to her family and friends. He succeeded in luring her to meet him a second time, raping her again around her twelfth birthday. The court heard a victim impact statement, in which the young girl initially blamed herself for the incidents, but eventually recognized that the fault was Ebanks'. In mitigation, Ebanks' attorney argued that he had shown remorse and was sorry for what the victim had endured. The court also received a character reference from David Wight MP, who had known Ebanks for over ten years. Alongside his prison term, a sexual harm prevention order was put in place to take effect for ten years once Ebanks is released from jail. ⚖️