Moment when police arrest a 54-year-old pedophile who threw a 10-year-old boy over a 30-meter cliff

By Milo Pope

17:00 06 June 2024, updated 17:08 06 June 2024

This is the shocking moment police arrest a man who attempted to throw a child over a 100-foot cliff after being caught sexually abusing a young girl.

Anthony Stocks, 54, was found guilty of attempted murder of a ten-year-old boy after abusing and making his little sister dependent on him while acting as an extra in several films.

A panel of 12 jurors at Oxford Crown Court today unanimously found Stocks, of Goring, Reading, guilty of all eight charges, including attempted murder, rape and sexual assault.

The footage shows the moment when he is arrested by police at home and an officer reads out to him the long list of his crimes.

The video then shows Stocks being questioned by police after the boy falls. He says he slipped on his own. He is also seen telling police he didn’t want the boy to fall off the cliff.

The court heard how the young girl confided The two boys, whose names cannot be disclosed for legal reasons, were injured after the attacks and she said she was “scared”. Stocks then realized that the boy knew about the attacks and had planned to “disturb” her.

In September 2022, Stocks took the boy to Ovingdean in Sussex after considering pushing him off a cliff in a quarry a few weeks earlier.

One witness said he saw “a small figure fall as if it had been thrown off the cliff,” followed by “a scream,” but the boy said he could not remember whether he was pushed or fell.

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He was then flown by helicopter to St. George’s Hospital in London, where he was diagnosed with multiple fractures in his head and arm, a deformity in his neck, and injuries to his spleen and kidney.

When questioned by police, the girl said Stocks admitted he wanted to push the boy off the cliff “to get rid of him.”

Jurors heard today that the 10-year-old student, who cannot be named for legal reasons, “miraculously” survived the 100-foot fall after landing on the concrete surface at the foot of the cliffs.

Prosecutors alleged that the twice-married defendant decided to lure the boy on a trip to London to visit Chelsea football stadium and later pushed him off a cliff in Brighton because the boy tried to stop Stocks from molesting his underage sister.

After spending several months in the hospital, the boy told police he knew “everything” about the sexual abuse his underage sister allegedly suffered at the hands of Stocks after the girl confided that Stocks had asked her to have sex with him “pretty much every day.”

The boy began “meddling” and staying with his sister whenever the abuser was around to prevent the abuse. Jurors said this “really upset” Stocks.

In his police interview, the boy described how he became increasingly suspicious of Stocks’ behaviour towards his sister after seeing him kiss the girl “on the lips” before they went “behind the bush” in a park where the children were playing.

The boy said: “Every time my sister went somewhere, he (Stocks) followed her. Then she told me that he asked her to have sex with him. This happened pretty much every day.”

“I was very sad for her. I didn’t know what to do at the time. I don’t think he (Stocks) knew that I knew everything. But he was disappointed and sighed every time I was there – because nothing happened.”

The boy’s sister, who gave personal evidence at the trial, said she was “terrified” of Stocks and did not speak to anyone about the alleged sexual assaults she suffered – except her little brother.

When asked why she told her brother, the girl replied: “So he could help me.”

The girl added that Stocks approached her a few nights before the trip to Chelsea Stadium and told her: “I’m going to push him off a cliff. I want to get rid of him so we can be together.”

The court heard that the girl had tried to warn her brother not to go with Stocks – to no avail, as the boy was an avid Chelsea fan and had “always” wanted to see the stadium.

When Stocks was arrested by police, he denied ever touching the girl and claimed the boy’s fall was an accident.

He told jurors last week that he was a film fan and wanted to take the boy to the cliff edge at Ovingdean to “see where Quadrophenia was filmed” – a 1979 British film drama based on The Who’s 1973 rock opera of the same name.

After the sentencing, Stocks’ defence lawyer Martin Rutherford told Judge Nigel Daly that there was no evidence that the defendant suffered from any kind of mental illness.

Stocks was remanded in custody and is due to appear again at Oxford Crown Court at the end of July for sentencing.

Judge Daly said: “These are very serious offences. I have to take into account the dangerousness of the charges, particularly the attempted murder, the motive for which lies in the first six counts of rape and sexual abuse of a young girl.”

“It will take some time. I want to look into many things about his past. In any case, it will be a long prison sentence.”

Stocks was found guilty of four counts of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 13 and one count of inducing or soliciting a child under the age of 13 to engage in sexual conduct.

He was also found guilty of at least three counts of rape of a child and attempted murder, but denied all charges.