A drunken husband who tried to rape his wife was j
A drunken husband who tried to rape his wife was jailed for
four years today (Tues) by an Old Bailey judge.
The 30-years-old former soldier was literally caught with
his trousers down attacking his estranged wife on the kitchen
floor.
Police were called after one of the couple’s terrified
children fled to a neighbours home to get help.
The man is the second husband to be jailed since the Law
Lords historic ruling that a wife is entitled to say ‘no.
‘
Jailing the man, whose heavy drinking led to the breakdown of
his 11-years marriage, Judge Jeffrey Rucker said: ‘You made a
great error or judgement when you decided to plead not guilty.
‘Your drink problem would have been considerable mitigation
and you would have spared your wife the indignity of reliving
these events in public in the witness box.
‘Perhaps one of the truest things she said about you is that
when things go wrong it is everybody’s fault but yours.
I expect
you will say your conviction is all her fault.
‘You put her through the misery of this trial.
You have
revealed yourself to me as an arrogant, insensitive, uncaring
man.
‘It was a cruel attempted rape you were convicted of, but
if the police had not come it would have been rape.
‘
Giving evidence during the two days trial Mrs X, 31, gently
sobbed as she described the June 13 attack.
At the time she was living alone with their three children
aged ten and six years and a two months old baby in Carshalton,
Surrey.
Her husband was living nearby.
They had separated soon
after he left the army in 1988 having served for ten years with the Royal Electronic Mechanical Engineers (REME).
He went live in his native Glasgow, returning for occasionally to visit his
wife and children.
Subsequent reconciliations failed and at the time of the
attack they were living apart.
On a numer of occasions Mr X,a
mechanic, turned up at his wife’s home drunk and ‘kicked in the
door’ when she refused to let him in.
On the night of the attack he had turned up at lunchtime and
began abusing and pushing his wife around, said prosecutor Mr
Andrew McDowell.
He fell asleep, but then woke and caught hold of his wife
round the waist.
She objected and tried to push him away.
Their
little boy intervened and kicked his father before running and
hiding in a bedroom.
Mr X pursued the child, kicked open the bedroom door and hit
the boy.
Mrs X fled with the children to her mother’s nearby
home and returned later that afternoon after her husband had
gone.
But he turned up later and again began behaving abusively
before falling asleep.
Eventually it got so late Mrs X had to put the children to bed
and went to sleep in her son’s bed.
At about 10.
30p.
m.
she was
abruptly woken by her husband bursting into the room.
She ran out of the room and got the children up in order to get out of the house, the court had heard.
But as she was preparing bottles for her baby in the kitchen
her husband burst in.
He wedged the door shut against the older
children frightened and crying for their mother and pushed his
wife on to the floor.
He tore down her underwear and was trying to rape her when
three police officers ran in.
Mr X was dragged to his feet, his
pants and trousers round his ankles, whilst a woman officer com
forted the ‘sobbing hysterical’ wife.
‘It’s alright, it just got out of hand,’ protested Mr X.
In court he claimed that his wife was consenting to sex and
was only upset by the police officers walking in on them.
He was found guilty of attempted rape, which he denied.
He looked stunned as he was led away to jail.
ENDS
