Brothers found guilty of raping teenage girls

Mark Evans and Robert Evans will be sentenced on 16 January

Two brothers have been found guilty of raping vulnerable girls as young as 13 in Rotherham 18 years ago.

Mark Evans, 36, and Robert Evans, 40, manipulated their victims and plied them with drugs and alcohol before luring them to locations where they attacked them, Sheffield Crown Court heard on Wednesday.

Two victims, aged 13 and 14 at the time of the offences, told the court how they were raped by both brothers on separate occasions. Another woman was raped by Mark Evans when she was 13.

The brothers will be sentenced on 16 January.

The pair were arrested in August 2020 as part of Operation Stovewood, set up after the Jay Report found at least 1,400 girls were abused, trafficked and groomed by gangs of men in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

The court heard that two of the victims had been plied with alcohol by the brothers on separate occasions before they were lured to different locations, including a barn and an alleyway, where they were raped.

The third victim was groomed by Mark Evans, who gave her drugs and alcohol before he raped her in an alleyway.

'Courageous testimonies'

National Crime Agency senior investigator Kim Boreham said: “The victims bravely described how the brothers abused them in the worst ways, showing no remorse afterwards."

She said it was extremely difficult for the women to recall their abuse but that their "courageous testimonies" meant the brothers had faced justice.

Mark Wayne Evans, of Wharncliffe Hill, Rotherham, was found guilty of two counts of rape, one count of sexual activity with a child and one count of assault by penetration.

Robert George Evans, of Thompson Close, Rotherham, was found guilty of two counts of rape.

Their sister, Ann Marie Evans, 29, of Goldthorpe near Barnsley, was earlier handed a six-week suspended prison sentence after she admitted posting the names of the three victims on social media.

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