THE family of a 13-year-old schoolgirl who was raped twice by a man in a Kendal flat have spoken of their trauma and heartache.

Following the sentencing of Mitchell Harrison, 21, to four-and-a-half years imprisonment by Carlisle Crown Court, the girl’s mother and grandmother have talked of the dark shadow the experience has left hanging over the family.

The girl, who was raped by Harrison in August last year, is back at school and has started to lead the beginnings of a normal life.

“She can’t go to sleep without a light on and she says things like she wishes she was dead,” said the girl’s mother, with tears streaming down her face.

“Sometimes she has to sleep with me in my bed and for a long time she wouldn’t come out of her room. She is still scared.

“It has been a nightmare. Words cannot begin to describe how awful it has been. You think these things only happen on TV, not to your own family.”

Described as a young-looking 13-year-old by her grandmother, the girl met Harrison for the first time on the afternoon of the rape.

Carlisle Crown Court heard she accompanied him back to his flat where he said he was going to get money for cigarettes and drink. But once there he told the terrified girl to strip and raped her twice.

She only managed to escape when another man arrived and she fled naked into the street with her clothes in her arms.

Harrison was jailed indefinitely and will have to serve at least four-and-a half-years in prison before even being considered for parole.

“If you know her, she just looks so young. She doesn’t wear provocative clothes or look older. I think he is just a bad, bad person, a paedophile who has not shown any re-morse for what he did,” she said.

The girl’s mother has struggled to cope since the incident and has only recently returned to work.

“The whole ordeal has made me feel ill. I tried going back to work but it was just too hard, having it go over in your mind again and again. And it doesn’t get easier, it doesn’t feel better with time. I still can’t even talk about it without crying. This should have never hap-pened to my daughter, she will carry it with her for the rest of her life,” she said.

Her mother continued: “I hope as she gets older she can put it behind her and she can just think ‘at least I survived.’.”

The court heard it was the third time Harrison had been in trouble for sexual assaults on young girls.

When he was 13 he was given a formal warning for indecently assaulting a seven-year-old in an inci-dent which these days, the court was told, would be classed as rape.

And when he was 15 he was taken to court for threatening to rape a 15-year-old classmate whose breasts he grabbed during a lesson.

Prosecuting counsel Rob Dudley told the court that Harrison had sexual activity with a 15-year-old just a few days before the rape of the 13-year-old.

Judge Peter Hughes QC said Harrison had to be locked up for public protection because it was clear that he posed ‘a substantial risk’ to girls and young women.

Detective Inspector Dave Banks said: “This brutal offender has been taken off our streets.

“Rape is an incredibly violent, offence that can have long-lasting conse-quences not only for the victims, but also their families and loved ones.

“In order to catch sex offenders we need victims to be confident that they will be believed and we will do all we can to bring offenders to justice.”