A brute who threatened to kill a schoolgirl was today behind bars - trapped by his DNA four years after the attack.

It was only when Jay Faulkner was arrested for being abusive to police that they discovered he was the man behind the assault on a 13-year-old girl.

Today Faulkner, 30, of South Crockerford, Vange, was starting a three-and-a-half year jail sentence after admitting assault occasioning actual bodily harm and threats to kill.

Prosecutor Mark Halsey told Southend Crown Court how the girl was walking home after school across Fryerns School playing fields in the Fryth, Basildon, in September 1998.

She saw a man on a pink bike who came back towards her and became suspicious and tried to find a way out of the field through the fence.

The girl was grabbed from behind, pulled to the ground and began to scream.

Faulkner threatened to kill her if she continued screaming. She tried to fight him off but she ended up on her back and he grabbed her around the neck.

Mr Halsey said she was fortunate because 15-year-old Michael Harding saw the girl in a headlock and ran up to tell the defendant to get off.

In a statement to police the boy said Faulkner told him: "She should have let me do what I wanted to do".

As the defendant got on his bike the boy chased after him and the girl went to a pensioner's home for help.

Despite a major investigation after the incident, police did not find the culprit until three and a half years after the offence when Faulkner was arrested for being abusive to police in a pub.

When a DNA saliva sample was taken from him, it matched the blood found on the victim's shirt.

Faulkner was sentenced to three and a half years for the assault and two years for the threats to kill, to run concurrently.

Published Monday October 14, 2002

Brought to you by the Evening Echo