A woman pretended to befriend a man attacking her to stop herself being raped or killed.

The student used her psychology training to emphasise with Mark Edwards and eventually the loner stopped his attack and apologised to her.

Edwards had grabbed the woman from behind, told her he had a knife and forced her into a dark alleyway off Southfield Road in East Oxford.

But his victim knew talking to Edwards, who complained he could not meet women, might boost his self-esteem and halt the attack.

Edwards, of Nowell Road, Rose Hill, Oxford, was yesterday jailed for six years at Oxford Crown Court after admitting a charge of serious sexual assault.

The woman, who believed Edwards had a gun, said she would have had a drink with him if he had approached her in the proper way after he confessed he could not get a girlfriend.

Amjad Malik, prosecuting, said the woman applied her knowledge of psychology because she feared Edwards, 43, would rape or kill her.

He said: “She described how she felt this man was insecure, unstable and that if she could make him feel good about himself it may be that he might stop what he was doing.

“She described doing what she had to do to survive.

“She talked to him and he started to tell her that he could not get a girl, that no girl would sit with him and have a drink.

“She told him that this was the wrong way of meeting a girl and that if he had approached her in the correct way she would have sat and drank with him.

“She was, in effect, cajoling him. It worked.

“He said to her ‘You are very nice. I am very sorry. This is not me, I do not do this’.

“It was at that point he felt he could walk away and he did.”

Mr Malik added Edwards, 43, started to leave but returned to apologise again.

When he did eventually leave, the woman called the police, who found Edwards, a dad-of-two, an hour later driving up and down Cowley Road.

Peter Coombe, defending, said Edwards did not have a weapon during the attack, at about 1.45am on April 9 last year, and had no previous convictions.

He added what the victim thought was a gun being forced into her ribs was actually a torch.

Mr Coombe said: “The complainant’s behaviour was astonishingly brave and quick-witted. She showed an extraordinary degree of compassion.”

Jailing Edwards for six years and ordering him to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for life, Judge Julian Hall said: “You have utterly changed her life.

“It is difficult to know, because of the way she behaved, what you might have done. It is difficult to know if it might have led to rape.

“The evil of it was it was 2am when you whisked her off the street by force and absolutely terrified her.”