The determination of a child-rape victim to see her Portuguese attacker brought to justice has finally resulted in a major coup for Staffordshire Police, who announced last week that they have got their man – 5000 miles away in Brazil.
António Pedro de Alves had morphed into a new life with a new wife, far from the 11-year prison sentence handed out to him in 2013 for his online grooming of a 12-year-old schoolgirl and her subsequent rape in his car in a supermarket carpark.
Even though Alves’ had hopped the country before he was sentenced, the court ordeal saw his victim awarded compensation from the Criminal Injuries Board.
She vowed she would be using the cash to hire a private detective, as at the time the police investigation appeared to be going nowhere (click here).
.The girl’s stand galvanized police and according to her local paper, the Staffordshire Phoenix, Alves’ was soon ‘tracked down in Brazil’.
But it took almost two years before he was arrested.
Alves is now in a prison cell in Pernambuco awaiting extradition.
According to reports in the Portuguese press, his downfall came because he married a Brazilian woman using his real identity papers. These were quickly flagged after Interpol issued an International Arrest Warrant.
Now 44, Alves is apparently claiming the sex he had with his victim was consensual.
Reports suggests his ‘new wife’ not only had no knowledge of his rape conviction, she had no idea he was still married to a woman in the UK.
When Alves is finally extradited, he may thus face charges of bigamy as well as an extra penalty for having tried to evade justice.
A spokesman for the fugitive and extradition unit of Staffordshire Police told reporters: “What I hope comes across strongly in this case is that time and distance has made no difference in the outcome for Alves. We knew we would finally track him down and we knew this would become a worldwide hunt. We await the ruling from the Brazilian Supreme Court”.
For now, there is no information on where Alves came from in Portugal, nor how long he had been living in Rugeley, Staffordshire, before he raped his victim.
He was arrested in the north eastern tourist resort of Recife earlier this month.
