A MAN accused of trying to force himself on a woman he’d earlier met at a bar was cleared of attempted rape – but found guilty of two other counts of sexual assault.

Joseph Parkin, 27, was said to have attempted to get the woman to perform oral sex on him as he walked her home in Witney in the early hours of January 17, 2019.

After more than 10 hours of deliberations, jurors at Oxford Crown Court returned a not guilty verdict on the allegation of attempted rape. However, they convicted him by majority verdicts of two counts of sexual assault by touching.

During the trial, the court heard how the pair had met at The Rocket Bar, Corn Street, and shared a kiss.

The defendant said he would walk the woman home. He put his jacket around her shoulders as they walked down the road.

Parkin was said to have persistently asked to stay at her house that night. She said he couldn’t, as she lived with her mother.

As they walked down an alleyway, he was said to have pawed at her and grabbed her by the throat, kissed her face and called her abusive names. “She says he was smiling as he did so,” prosecutor Alexandra Bull said.

He forced her down to the floor then tried to get her to perform oral sex on him, it was claimed. The complainant said he then touched her sexually.

She ran from him but had hurt her ankle. The woman claimed Parkin had ‘laughed at her distress’, Ms Bull told the jury. She eventually managed to get home, where her parents called the police.

Put in the stand, Parkin said he’d left the bar with the woman. He did not know Witney well and had a poor sense of direction; he hoped she’d help him find the taxi stand.

They had walked around chatting for around an hour to an hour-and-a-half. As they walked down an alley they had kissed and he touched her, he claimed. She had pushed him away.

He told the jury they’d parted ways but he went to her aid when he heard her falling to the floor. He suggested it was then she’d injured herself. He denied grabbing her throat or attempting to rape her.

The court heard he had no previous convictions. The only matter on his record was a caution for harassing a former partner.

In a victim personal statement read to the court after the jury returned its verdicts, the woman said the attack had left her struggling to leave the house and had affected her trust in others. “On that night I put my trust in him to walk me home and he clearly had other ideas,” she said.

Judge Michael Gledhill QC bailed Parkin, of Finstock, Oxfordshire, to return for sentencing on September 3 and ordered a pre-sentence report.

He said: “I want the probation service to consider his attitude to women, to sexual violence and relationships and to look at why he has committed this offence towards a woman who was obviously under the influence of drink.”

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