Mark Anthony Hawkes (Image: South Wales Police)
Last Updated: 1 hour ago
A man already behind bars for sexually abusing a young girl has been handed a further 16-year sentence after being found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting a young boy.
Mark Anthony Hawkes, 39, of no fixed abode, was convicted at trial at Swansea Crown Court of rape of a boy under 13 and two counts of sexual assault of a boy under 13. The offences took place in the Neath Port Talbot area in the mid-2000s – shortly after he had sexually abused the girl.
A pattern of offending
The court heard Hawkes has a deeply troubling history of sexual violence stretching back years. Before the abuse of either child, he had served a two-year sentence of detention in a young offenders institution for sexually assaulting a woman in her 20s. After his release on licence from that sentence, he went on to abuse first the young girl and then the boy.
In 2021, Hawkes was convicted at trial of four counts of sexual assault of a girl under 13 and received a nine-year sentence comprising eight years in custody followed by a one-year licence period. He also has a previous conviction from 2011 for arson, for which he was sentenced to 42 months in prison.
Threats and violence
Prosecutor Ian Wright told the court that Hawkes subjected the boy to a “brutal” rape and serious sexual assaults, accompanied by “intimidation and violence”. The boy was threatened with being killed if he ever revealed what had happened to him.
Impact on the victim
Recorder Jonathan Rees KC, who presided over the trial, said the “harrowing” evidence given by the victim made clear that the “brutal” rape and serious sexual assaults had caused almost two decades of “mental and psychological torture”. He said the victim had told the jury how the abuse had almost “destroyed” him, and said it was to the complainant’s credit that it had not done so.
Defence mitigation
Colin McCarraher, representing Hawkes, told the court there was no suggestion of any sexual offending since the time period before the court, and described his client as a man “who went completely perverse” in the mid-2000s. He said the defendant’s family had “walked away from him” following his conviction, and that the only relative who had maintained any contact – a grandfather who occasionally visited him in prison – had died earlier in the week during the course of the trial.
Mr McCarraher added that Hawkes had completed every course available to him in prison and had held enhanced prisoner status for around six years – a role which was “not a key to popularity” among fellow inmates.
Sentencing ⚖️
Hawkes was given a special sentence as an offender of particular concern, totalling 16 years – made up of 15 years in custody and a mandatory one-year licence period. The sentence will run consecutively to the one he is currently serving, meaning the effective total sentence imposed on Hawkes since 2021 stands at 24 years in prison followed by two years on extended licence.
He will be eligible to apply for release after serving two-thirds of the custodial element of the new sentence, but it will be for the Parole Board to determine whether he is safe to be released.
Hawkes will be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life and was made the subject of an indefinite sexual harm prevention order to control his access to children.
