The trial of a South Tottenham, London, UK "rebel" haredi man accused of molesting an “innocent and vulnerable” 14-year-old haredi girl in her own home has been halted on the first day of the hearing and one charge against him thrown out. “Despite the fact she was 14-and-three-quarters she knew very little about sexual matters, she was very much an innocent child; she didn’t know, for example, what the word ‘vagina’ meant. She was isolated and vulnerable in this closed community, and this defendant took sexual advantage of her in these circumstances.”
The Tottenham Journal reports:
The trial of a South Tottenham man accused of molesting an “innocent and vulnerable” 14-year-old orthodox Jew in her own home has been halted on the first day of the hearing.
Efraim Cray, 32, of Wellington Drive, South Tottenham, this morning faced trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court on three charges of sexual assault. But this afternoon he was found not guilty of one of those charges on the direction of judge Louise Kamill.
Cray had allegedly targeted the girl for months before she contacted police.
The girl’s upbringing was so austere she knew nothing about sex, and after she contacted police her parents “whisked her away” from Stamford Hill to Israel with the aim of giving her to foster parents on a farm, the court heard.
Opening the case, prosecutor Daniel Smith said the victim, now 17, “lived in Stamford Hill in the ultra-orthodox Jewish community” when the assaults took place in 2012.
Cray, also an orthodox Jew, was considered a rebel within the community, being one of very few who wore Western dress and owned a TV.
Mr Smith continued: “Despite the fact she was 14-and-three-quarters she knew very little about sexual matters, she was very much an innocent child; she didn’t know, for example, what the word ‘vagina’ meant.
“She was isolated and vulnerable in this closed community, and this defendant took sexual advantage of her in these circumstances.”
She called police in January 2013 and Cray was arrested three days later, the same night the girl’s family took her abroad. But she returned to England after Haringey social services intervened and has since been placed in care.
The trial was halted this afternoon. Cray will learn on December 12 if prosecutors wish to proceed with a fresh trial on the remaining two charges of sexual assault, alleging he touched the girl over her clothes. Cray denies both charges.