Three men found guilty of drugging and raping a young girl and “using her for their own horrendous gratification” have been jailed.
Kevin Horvath, 26, and Ivan Turtak, 38, first saw the 12-year-old victim in a supermarket car park in Dover and encouraged her to get in their car on August 11, 2024.
She was then plied with drugs including crystal methamphetamine and amphetamine before she was raped and subjected to sexual acts by them and a third man, Ernest Gunar, 27, over a two-day period.
All three men are originally Slovakian, although they have been in the UK for some time. Horvath and Gunar are understood to be cousins.
The trio were jailed for the rape of a 12-year-old girl along with a string of other sexual offences at Canterbury Crown Court on Friday.
Judge Sarah Counsell told the court their victim still has nightmares, does not have any friends and cannot feel comfortable around large groups of people.
Relaying her words, the judge said: “I don’t feel like the same girl anymore, I just want to be her again and I hope that I will be her again.”
In sentencing, Gunar was jailed for 19 years while Horvath and Turtak were each jailed for 17 years.
All three will also serve three years of an extended licence period and received concurrent sentences for the other counts of rape, sexual assault and indecent images.
During her ordeal, whenever they went out in public, the girl was too scared to talk to anyone or try to run away, the court heard.
She managed to escape from her captors after waking up before them on August 13.
While their initial meeting “appears to have been random”, their actions quickly became organised and they moved between different addresses including Gunar’s caravan in Folkstone.
“There were elements of planning and you acted together to commit these offences and you used drugs to facilitate your offending,” added Judge Counsell.
The three men have shown little or no remorse and were all assessed as dangerous enough to warrant extended sentences by the judge.
They tried to claim during their trial that the girl had told them she was 19 or 20 and one of them described her as “sexually promiscuous”, the court heard.
“You claimed that she told you that she was 19 or 20 but I do not accept your evidence,” said Judge Counsell.
“She does not look anywhere near 19 or 20.”
On June 19, jurors at Canterbury Crown Court found the three men guilty of rape and other sexual offences after more than 14 hours of deliberation.
Gunar was convicted of two counts of rape against a child under 13; Turtak was convicted of one count; and Horvath was convicted of sexual assault.
Horvath had already admitted three counts of rape against a child under 13, and one charge of assault by penetration of a child under 13, and Gunar had also admitted one charge of rape.
Turtak initially denied rape but did admit taking indecent photos of a child.
