A rapist told his victim she ‘belonged’ to him before dragging her to the floor and molesting her in the kitchen.

David Williams, 33, was said to have removed a tampon from the woman; throwing it across the room before subjecting her to the sickening assault.

In the aftermath of the attack, Williams initially claimed he would ‘come back and be even worse’ and that she ‘deserved it’.

When she challenged him, asking ‘how he could live with himself’, he became ‘agitated’, held a knife to his own chest and ‘told her to push it in’, the court heard. He then stabbed the kitchen door.

Jailing him for eight years, Judge Nigel Daly told the bearded defendant: “You demonstrated control over her and she recalls saying to you [that] ‘you do not own me, I’m not yours’ to which you replied that you owned her until you said otherwise.

“I am quite satisfied that your failure to accept rejection and the control that you showed over the victim was partly the cause of this attack.”

He added: “I also bear in mind the contents of the statement made by the victim on September 26, in saying that ‘when he raped me he pulled the tampon out and threw it across the room and I felt humiliated’.”

However, Judge Daly said he was ‘not satisfied’ there was sufficient evidence to support an allegation, made during the trial last year, that Williams had taken a photograph of the victim following the rape.

Williams, of Mold Crescent, Banbury, was found guilty last September of rape and sexual assault by penetration. The defendant, whose 19 previous convictions include offences of theft and breaching court orders, admitted damaging an internal door at the victim’s house on the same night as the rape. He was cleared of an earlier alleged rape.

Prosecutor Emma Nash said that the assault was committed on April 23 last year, when Williams went to the victim’s home. He left after an argument with her friend, but returned later on.

He claimed she ‘belonged’ to him and that he ‘owned her’, the court heard. She suffered a panic attack and Williams ‘tried to get her to calm down’. He picked her up and placed her on a sofa in the living room.

The woman rebuffed his attempts to ‘cuddle’ then get on top of her. Ms Nash said Williams then ‘dragged’ her to the floor and they ended up in the kitchen, where the sexual assault took place.

In a victim personal statement summarised to the court, the woman said she had found it ‘overwhelmingly difficult at times’ to carry on with ‘normal life’. She struggled to sleep and said she had ‘often just sat in my office and cried’.

Lyall Thompson, mitigating, said his client continued to put forward ‘his version of events’ that the sexual activity was consensual. Although unable to accept the guilty verdicts, he bore ‘no antagonism’ towards the victim, the barrister said.

He suggested that the incident was a ‘one off’ and out of character. The defendant had written a letter to the judge setting out his concerns about the impact of his incarceration on his loved ones, the court heard. A number of character references had been submitted on Williams’ behalf.

Williams will be on the sex offender register for life. A restraining order bans him from contacting his victim indefinitely.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

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