A MAN who beat a woman unconscious with a bottle of wine and a brick before stripping her below the waist has been jailed for four years.

Paul Simmons, 22, of Pauling Road, Headington, Oxford, launched the attack in March, after going shopping with his victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, Oxford Crown Court heard.

Kevin West, prosecuting, said that when the woman refused Simmons’ advances in a alleyway by her home, he attacked her.

He said: “She told him to go home, and suddenly he became violent. He put her hands round her nose and mouth, pushed her into the bike and started to suffocate her.

“She started to feel she was running out of air, and was extremely scared.”

He added: “She felt he was trying to turn her on to her belly, and at that stage she said she lost consciousness.”

Mr West said her injuries were caused by Simmons beating her over the head with a bottle of wine, and then hitting her about 15 times with a brick.

He said Simmons also came close to raping her as she lay unconscious.

Jennifer Edwards, defending, said Simmons had expressed nothing but remorse.

She said: “Prison is very hard for him, but he would say he deserves it. That is what he has said throughout these proceedings.”

Simmons was sentenced to three years in prison for actual bodily harm, a further year for sexual assault, banned from making any contact with his victim, and put on the Sex Offenders Register for a decade.