School minivan driver who raped 8-year-old girl is jailed for 12 years

A school minivan driver who raped an eight-year-old girl and sexually assaulted her on several occasions has been jailed for 12 years.

James Grech, 38, from Qormi was entrusted with driving the girl home from school in Gżira but would first drop off all the other children and take her to a secluded field where he would sexually assault her and on two occasions, rape her.

The girl is now 22 years old and still coming to grips with the trauma she suffered as a child.

The sexual assaults took place in 2006, but the girl had told nobody about them for years because Grech had threatened to hurt her sister if she told her parents about the abuse.

The victim started to have psychological problems later on in life, as she started dating boys at 16. She ended up needing psychiatric care.

The driver would tell the girl what to tell her mother after every assault, to justify her late drop-off.

The rape came to light in 2015 when her psychiatrist informed the police that his client wanted to speak to them about her experience.

In 2006, Grech had already been reported to the police for flirting with her and touching her chest, but there was insufficient evidence to begin criminal proceedings, the court was told.

When the girl reached age 16 in 2014, she started therapy, complaining of pseudo-seizures when she had her first boyfriend.

The victim testified four years ago, telling the court how at first, she would sit in the front seat of the minivan and the man would touch her leg. On one occasion, she was so shocked by this that she turned the steering wheel involuntarily.

After this incident, she started to sit at the back of the van. On one occasion, the driver took her to a field instead of home and groped her. He threatened to hurt her sister if she told her parents what he had done. The next day he drove her to the same place, expecting more from her and ending up removing all her clothes and forcing her to perform sex acts.

When the girl cried on the fourth occasion of her abuse, the man became irate and threw her across the van, causing her to bleed from the mouth and nose. 

After cleaning her blood with his shirt, he told her to tell her mother that it was just a playground accident.

On the fifth occasion, he raped her. The next day he was also violent and punched her in the stomach and forced her to have sex with him again. This repeated for the seventh time a day after that.

In February 2006, the girl had decided to tell one of the nuns at her school that she had seen Grech stroking the hair of another girl and was touching the girl’s private parts.

She didn’t tell her the whole story because she expected that the man would be transferred, as in fact happened.

The girl’s mother had once confronted the driver, telling him to stop buying her daughter sweets and had also confirmed seeing the girl come home with cuts and bruises, allegedly caused by other girls.

One day her daughter arrived home late and went straight to the shower, refusing to eat. That week one of the nuns in charge of the school had called her up and advised her not to send her daughter on school transport.

The victim’s father testified that he had discovered what had happened after reading his daughter’s diary when she started to show fearful behaviour near the school van. The court heard extracts from the child’s diary.

The man’s employer told the court that he had never had any reports of misbehaviour regarding the accused, but when the 2006 report was filed, he was stopped from work for 15 days.

The court ruled that a sentence close to the maximum was merited, in view of the psychological damage suffered by the victim. It pointed out that the maximum it could hand down was limited by the law in force at the time. Subsequent legal amendments had increased the punishment for such crimes.

Superintendent Paula Ciantar prosecuted. Lawyers Jason Grima and Noel Bianco appeared for the defendant. Lawyer Joe Giglio appeared as parte civile for the victim.