The chilling moment Rose West’s nephew pounced on a 12-year-old girl in the street before taking her back to his flat and raping her has been captured on CCTV.
Steven Letts, 39, was approached by the girl while he was walking through a shopping centre in Gloucester.
He then took her back to his squalid apartment, where he plied her with cocaine, cannabis and vodka, before carrying out his vile attack.
CCTV stills show Letts, dressed in a baseball cap and black tracksuit bottoms, cycling alongside the youngster as they walk through the city centre at night.
He later denied abducting and raping the girl but was found guilty of both counts at Gloucester Crown Court on Monday November 6.
This is the chilling moment Steven Letts led his 12-year-old victim away from Gloucester city centre before he plied her with drugs and raped her
Letts’ victim had been placed in a special children’s home in the area by another council and was accompanied by her support worker when the tragic tale unfolded, the court heard.
The girl had approached a number of adult men asking them if they had a cigarette but none responded until Letts saw an opportunity – which he quickly took.
He offered the girl a cannabis joint instead and she then coolly walked off with him, as he cycled alongside on his bike despite attempts by the care worker to remonstrate with them both.
Once back at his flat, Letts let the girl smoke cocaine through a pipe ‘to see how her body copes with it’ because it was her first time trying the class A drug.
His friend was also present – but he is said to have left when the girl declared that she was underage.
The rape came to light when the victim asked a social worker ‘how long it’d take to find out if you are pregnant’.
Letts, dressed in a baseball cap and black tracksuit bottoms, cycling alongside the girl as they walk through the city centre at night
The court heard Letts later kissed the girl in his kitchen where she reiterated her age.
She later became tired and went to sleep under a blanket in Letts’ bed.
He climbed in and began ‘cuddling’ the child before initiating sex.
A statement from the girl said ‘It went from cuddling to just like too far’ and the sex lasted 30 minutes.
The court heard the sex ‘started to hurt’ the child who wanted Letts to stop but felt guilty asking because he had earlier provided alcohol and cocaine.
The girl had approached a number of men asking them if they had a cigarette but none responded apart Letts, Gloucester Crown Court heard
When Letts was later arrested, police found DNA matching the girl inside his underwear.
Letts claimed he believed the girl was 16 years old when they met.
Summing up, Judge Jamie Tabor QC read the girl’s statement about events at Letts’ flat.
‘He kissed me and i said i cant do this because I’m only 15,’ it said.
Steven Letts, 38, who is the nephew of serial killer Rose West, has been found guilty of abducting and raping the girl at his flat in Gloucester earlier this year
‘He told me sad stories like a couple of months ago he tried to strangle himself.
‘I think he said that so that I’d feel bad and kiss him.
‘I did tell him i was 15 [instead of 12] because I thought I had more of a chance of getting drink and drugs.’
Letts has a string of convictions for violence and breaking and entering and was convicted earlier this year of aggravated burglary.
He and a friend broke into a home armed with machetes, after believing a drug dealer lived there, Gloucester Crown court heard in May.
Instead, they were confronted by an innocent couple who they then threatened, demanding money and valuables, while their terrified children listened from another room.
Letts again denied he was responsible.
He will be sentenced for abduction and rape of the 12-year-old girl and the burglary next week and is facing up to 20 years in prison.
His mother Barbara loyally waited for the prison van containing her son to arrive at court every morning.
She watched patiently from the public gallery, listening to the evidence before waiting to wave him off again when he was driven away by prison officers again in the evening.
Letts is the son of Graham Letts, the brother of Rose West and with whom she allegedly had an incestuous sexual relationship herself when both were still teenagers.
Soon after Rose was convicted of ten murders in 1995, Graham’s marriage to his wife Barbara, broke down and he moved away from Gloucester,
Rose West was convicted of the murders in 1995 but maintained her innocence. She is serving a life term at Low Newton prison in Durham
In 1998, he suffered a breakdown and was admitted to a mental hospital in Birmingham. It came just months after he admitting making a hoax bomb call and was jailed for a year.
Graham told police he had planted a device in a seaside hotel in a bid to get his estranged son to come out of the building to speak to him.
During his trial it was revealed Graham had suffered from psychological and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his sister’s connection to one of Britain’s most horrific murder cases.
It is believed he may have cracked after John Hill, a cousin of Fred, was jailed for four years for rape and indecent assault – the latest incident in the family’s long list of shame.
Graham, an unemployed decorator, now thought to be about 60, unwittingly helped Fred lay concrete at 25, Cromwell Street, where police found four graves.
He was a regular visitor there and took one girlfriend, known as Sandra, who was a resident in another Gloucester children’s home to visit the evil couple.