29/06/96 - Mad Howard told
me he'd rape girl of 5
The Mirror
The man accused of murdering Sophie Hook confided that
wanted to rape and kill a girl of four or five, a court
heard yesterday.
Burly Howard Hughes, 31, allegedly revealed his secret
fantasy to convicted child-sex offender Michael Guidi
about 18 months before seven- year-old Sophie was raped
and strangled. Mr Guidi, 32, told Chester Crown Court:
"He said he would like to abduct a girl, have sex
with her and then murder her.
"He said he would strangle her or cut her throat.
"He would stick her body under the ground."
Mr Guidi said the conversation took place when he was
lodging at Hughes's home in Colwyn Bay, North Wales.
Hughes - known locally as "mad Howard" -
had earlier told him he was attracted to girls aged
four or five.
Mr Guidi told the jury: "He said he would like
to interfere with them. He would like to touch them
and have sex with them.
"He said this over a period of time on more than
one occasion."
Sophie was snatched from a tent in her uncle's garden
at Llandudno in North Wales while sleeping out with
pals after a birthday party last July.
Mr Guidi said he had known Hughes since he was about
13.
He admitted having a string of convictions involving
children.
He was jailed in 1987 for two offences of abduction
and two of gross indecency and two years later got five
years for indecent assaults on boys, burglary and arson.
But as defending barrister Patrick Harrington probed
his record, Mr Guidi shouted from the witness box: "Listen,
I've been convicted for what I did and I have paid.
"I am not standing here being persecuted by you.
I am not on trial for murder."
Mr Guidi agreed that he had been paid £150 for
talking about Hughes to a newspaper reporter but denied
that he had come forward for money.
"This has nothing to do with money - it is to
do with truth," he said.
Hughes denies raping and murdering Sophie. The trial continues.
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