A SEX fiend who raped a teenage girl he groomed on Facebook has failed to overturn his conviction.

Martin Dews, 30, was jailed for six-and-a-half years in December over the sexual assault and rape of the 17-year-old.

The Court of Appeal’s Judge Peter Jacobs this week said there was nothing to suggest that the Oxford Crown Court jury’s verdict was unsafe.

Dews met his victim in late 2007 and began sending her messages on Facebook. He moved to Leeds after the attack in May 2009.

The trial heard Dews, formerly of Greater Leys, lured the girl to an isolated spot, telling her he wanted to chat. She was then sexually assaulted and raped.

He was convicted after the jury heard the victim returned to the scene and found a decaying letter addressed to him.

Dews’s legal team argued on Tuesday that the prosecution had not forensically examined the letter to determine why it had disintegrated when examined.

Mobile phone records were not properly examined and an allegation of harassment she had made in the past was not disclosed to the defence, the judges were told.

The trial judge did not explain enough about the issue of consent, they argued. But, rejecting the appeal, Judge Jacobs said Dews had never claimed the girl consented, but instead denied that anything had happened between them at all.

The police investigated what was relevant and it was not important why the letter had disintegrated, but how it got to the spot where the rape happened, he said.

Judge Jacobs said: “We have looked at the summing-up as a whole to consider whether there is anything that would render the conviction unsafe.

“Looked at objectively, there is nothing to suggest that the verdicts of guilty were unsafe.”

Dews will remain on the Sex Offenders’ Register for life.

Last year’s trial was told that Dews had 27 previous convictions for offences including car crime, violence and burglary.

His victim told the Oxford Mail last year: “He should have got longer than he did. It has been hell.

“He’s scum.”