Three Slovakian men who repeatedly r@ped a 12-year-old girl over three days after luring her from the Asda car park in the United Kingdom have been found guilty by the court.
Kevin Horvath, 26 and Ivan Turtak, 38, spotted the youngster in Dover on August 11, 2024 and accosted her. They convinced her to get in their car.
They then took her in Horvath’s Skoda to Turtak’s flat in Dover, Kent, along with the third defendant and cousin of Horvath, Ernest Gunar Junior, 27, after promising to give her a cigarette, the court was told.
The men took advantage of the girl right inside Horvath’s car before taking her to Gunar’s squalid caravan on Arthur Street in Folkestone, Kent, where she was given illicit substances, and then repeatedly r@ped and subjected to degrading sexual acts.
The men told her they would k!ll her if she tried to escape or call for help and took a picture of her standing naked in a bathtub.
The victim was repeatedly passed around by the men after plying her with more crystal meth and amphetamine.
On August 13, she woke up before them and escaped before she was found by police in Dover.
Her phone was later found in Horvath’s car.
At trial, the court was told that the girl, who was filmed while drugged by Horvath, had been treated ‘like a receptacle’.
Turtak was convicted of oral rape and was the first to be arrested. He denied any sexual activity with the girl, telling police: ‘I have my own wife and I love her. I don’t do such things to children.’
After their arrests, DNA belonging to the defendants was found on the girl’s torso, clothing and intimate body areas.
Prosecutor Hannah Llewellyn-Waters said the vulnerable youngster had been ‘used, abused and discarded like trash’ by the gang.
The victim told the court: ‘I didn’t want them to hurt me. They had suggested that if I were to try and get help, they would hurt me.’
Det Con Linda Gavin, who interviewed the 12-year-old, told the court: ‘She was extremely upset, frightened, reluctant to speak. She was just frightened – a frightened child.’
During recorded cross-examination by lawyers representing the three men, the schoolgirl denied she had lied about her age or helped herself to drugs in the flat and caravan.
She also refuted suggestions from the lawyers that she had undressed herself and, while being raped by Horvath, had ‘gestured’ at Gunar to join them.
Turtak broke down in tears during testimony and claimed he believed the girl was 20, while Horvath claimed the girl looked like a ‘fully-formed woman’ without her clothes on.
Horvath was convicted of sexual assault of a child under 13. He had previously pleaded guilty to three charges of rape of a child under 13 and one charge of assault by penetration of a child under 13.
Turtak was convicted of rape of a child under 13. He had already pleaded guilty to taking indecent photos of a child.
Gunar was convicted of two charges of rape of a child under 13. He had previously pleaded guilty to one charge of rape of a child under 13.
The three men were remanded in custody until their sentencing hearing on September 12.
