Within hours, Phillip Daniel, 34, launched a string of sex attacks on three women in Wales last year that had ‘a very traumatic effect’ on all his victims, the court heard
A man linked to the notorious “incel” movement sexually assaulted a 15-year-old schoolgirl before heading to Cardiff, where he pounced on two women in shopping centre toilets.
Phillip Daniel, 34, targeted a 15-year-old girl in his hometown of Barry last summer, approaching the teen as she sat on a wall waiting for a friend, Newport Crown Court heard. He asked for her phone number, then put his hand on her calf against her will.
The terrified girl broke free and fled. Daniel then boarded a train to Cardiff, where he hid in a cubicle in the women’s toilets at St David’s shopping centre and sexually assaulted two more women.
Describing his attack oo the 15-year-old girl, Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke told Daniel: “You were behind her with one hand on her chest and one around her neck. Your head was near the left side of her face. She tried to pull your hands away and she started to scream. She called you a paedophile.”
Several hours later in Cardiff, when a young woman entered a bathroom in a shopping centre, Daniel grabbed her waist with both hands and pinned her against the wall. He released his grip after the woman shouted for help, Wales Online reports.
As the woman fled the bathroom, Daniel attacked another young woman trying to exit a different cubicle. He pushed her back and put his hand on her breast, while the woman fought back, using her fake nails to scratch him.
The victim feared that if got her inside the cubicle with him he would assault her “in a more serious way”, the court heard. After screaming for help she managed to free herself and Daniel was detained by shopping centre staff until police arrived.
He told officers “voices” in his head had told him to travel to Cardiff. They found a Viagra tablet – a medication for erectile dysfunction – in his wallet. Daniel, of Osprey Court in Barry, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the 15-year-old in Barry twice, along with the two sexual assaults in Cardiff.
At the time of the attacks, he was already under a community order for assaulting a lone female jogger in Cardiff’s Bute Park. Judge Lloyd-Clarke said the assaults had “a very traumatic effect” on all victims.
The 15-year-old told how her independence was hindered as she felt unable to leave the house alone for months and would carry an alarm at all times. One of the women said she avoided public bathrooms for weeks and stopped going out with friends until she felt confident enough. The other described taking time off work, being unable to sleep, and feeling afraid around men.
Daniel was involved in involuntarily celibate culture – a movement associated with extreme misogyny – and was found in a psychiatric report to pose an “elevated risk to females, particularly minors”, the court heard. In the period from the attacks until his sentencing, Daniel was detained under the Mental Health Act.
He has been in contact with mental health services throughout his adult life but “the picture has quietened” in recent months, according to his barrister William Bebb. Mr Bebb added that Daniel had been helped by new medication and had a support network around him, including a supportive father.
Judge Lloyd-Clarke said that Daniel poses a “a very high risk” to women and imposed an extended sentence with eight years in custody and four years on licence.
Daniel will remain on the sex offenders register for life and is banned under a sexual harm prevention order until 2040 from entering women’s or unisex toilets or having unsupervised contact with children.
