Trial begins of alleged child rapist Matthew Scaife, of Scarborough, who denies months of 'systematic' sexual abuse

An alleged child rapist subjected a young girl to months of “systematic” sexual abuse, a court heard.
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Matthew Scaife, 35, repeatedly raped the pre-teen girl over a period of about five months at two properties in Scarborough and Malton, it’s alleged.

The alleged victim was reluctant to tell anyone about the abuse because she was so scared of Scaife, a jury at York Crown Court was told.

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Prosecutor Julian Jones said the alleged offences were reported to police in November 2016. Scaife was arrested but “completely” denied all the allegations.

York Crown CourtYork Crown Court
York Crown Court

Police seized a hard drive from Scaife’s flat in Scarborough and found 19 indecent images of children on the disc, none of which were of the victim.

Scaife, of Crown Terrace, Scarborough, was charged with four counts of rape of a child under 13 years of age, three counts of sexual assault of a minor, one count of causing a child to engage in sexual activity and two charges of making indecent photographs of a child.

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The alleged offences against the girl are said to have occurred between May and September 2016. Between November of that year and December 2018, Scaife underwent several police interviews but maintained his innocence and appeared for trial on Tuesday.

Mr Jones told the jury: “(This was) the systematic, serious sexual abuse of (the alleged victim) in the months and weeks over the summer of 2016.”

He said that in late September 2016 - at about the time the alleged abuse came to an end - Scaife sent the girl threatening text messages about a video that appeared on social media.

Scaife had previously contacted the girl through a social-media account with the username ‘Superman Loves Someone’, claimed Mr Jones.

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The alleged victim - described as a “shy, unconfident and pretty vulnerable child” - did not “tell everything” about the alleged abuse in her initial disclosures to police because she was still afraid of Scaife, added Mr Jones.

The victim - who cannot be named for legal reasons - said that over the course of a five-month period, Scaife had forced her to perform lewd acts on him, as well as repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting her.

She said Scaife had told her he wanted to “break my virginity” and that he had raped her “routinely” on “multiple” occasions.

Mr Jones alleged that the indecent images found on Scaife’s hard drive betrayed his “unusual sexual interest in children”.

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He said that “all bar one” of the images had been deleted just a few days before Scaife was arrested.

He claimed that Scaife - who has a previous conviction from 2008 for wounding with intent following a stabbing incident - had tried to hide the images in his hard drive’s recycle bin because he “feared that his guilty secret was in serious danger of catching up with him”.

When police quizzed him about the images, Scaife said he had used the hard drive to store ordinary photos.

He admitted the hard drive was his but said the indecent images were “nothing to do with me”, claiming that others had “probably used that (hard drive)”, added Mr Jones.

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According to the prosecution, Scaife told police: “Not being funny, but anybody could have done that (stored indecent images on the hard drive) before I bought it.”

When officers asked Scaife if he had told the girl he wanted to “break” her virginity, he insisted he had said “nothing of the sort” and claimed the allegations were “all false” and that “nothing sexual happened”.

The trial continues.