A MORETON-IN-MARSH man has been jailed eight years for rape after a young woman had to give evidence twice in court.

Despite admitting the rape in text messages he sent to her afterwards, Sean Wadey pleaded not guilty at court.

After he was convicted by a unanimous verdict, Wadey, aged 32, of Church View, Aston Magna, was jailed for eight years and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

It was the second time he had stood trial, and his victim had had to give evidence, after a jury at Coventry Crown Court last year failed to reach a verdict.

Prosecutor Sharon Bahia said at Warwick Crown Court that after Wadey and the woman, who was in her 20s, had been drinking at the home of mutual friends in Stratford, they went back to her home in the town.

She later went to bed, having made it clear to him that she did not want to have sex of any kind.

“But that night, while she was asleep in bed, he raped her. He knew she could offer no resistance,” said Miss Bahia.

“She tried to push him off, but he pushed her face into the pillow, holding her down.”

Afterwards he fell asleep, but she did not feel able to get away from him to call the police.

When he woke, Wadey apologised, saying what he had done was ‘the worst thing in the world'.

He later sent her text messages in which he admitted he had raped her, telling her ‘I really don’t know why I did it, OK,’ and offered to turn himself in to the police – but did not do so.

“The prosecution say he is still too cowardly to admit it to himself and to you,” Miss Bahia said.

The following day the distressed woman called the police and told them she was going to take her own life and had been taking tablets and drinking.

Concerned officers went to her home, and she revealed what had taken place.

Following his arrest Wadey gave the police a prepared statement in which he said he had tried to initiate sex with her, and that she had been enjoying it.

In a later interview he changed his story, claiming it was her who had initiated sex and if he had carried out the rape it was an accident.

He claimed when they had intercourse he did not believe she was asleep and believed she was consenting.

But the jury found him guilty by a unanimous verdict.

Miss Bahia said the woman has been receiving counselling since the attack, which had left her feeling humiliating because it had involved an act the jury heard she considered particularly abhorrent.

Mr Harry suggested that Wadey’s ‘expressions of remorse in the immediate aftermath’ reflected what he truly felt.

Judge Andrew Lockhart QC commented: “That would have been a much more powerful submission if he’d acted upon it. He has had this trial, and there was an earlier trial in this case, so twice that witness has given evidence.”

“You knew no sex could ever take place on that night with her consent.

“You waited until she was asleep, and when she was asleep you decided to rape her."