A NEWPORT man who raped a woman while she was asleep has been sentenced to nine years in prison after being convicted following a trial.
Anthony Bowyer, 38, of Treberth Avenue, was found guilty by a jury of raping the victim on January 2 last year. He was also convicted of witness intimidation after attempting to pressure her into withdrawing the allegation.
The woman’s victim impact statement was read to Cardiff Crown Court during sentencing. She told the court she felt “shame” when attending a sexual assault referral centre after the attack.
She said: “I thought my heart was going to stop. When I left, tears were rolling down my face. I felt broken in every possible way. He took my dignity. I can’t let this destroy me.”
The court heard Bowyer, described as an amphetamine user, has 37 previous convictions for 81 offences. He has no previous convictions for sexual offences, but does have a caution for indecent assault dating back to when he was 19, after slapping a police community support officer on the bottom.
Mitigating, his barrister Julia Cox said Bowyer was “deeply embarrassed and ashamed” and argued there was “a prospect of rehabilitation” in the case. She also told the court he had grown up without a father figure from the age of six, with contact only resuming a few months before his father died in 2005.
Sentencing, Recorder Paul Hartley-Davies told Bowyer the victim had been left “very distressed” by what happened.
He imposed eight years’ imprisonment for rape, with a consecutive 12-month term for witness intimidation, making a total of nine years. Bowyer will serve two-thirds of the sentence in custody before being released on licence.
The court ordered Bowyer to sign the sex offenders register for life and imposed a 10-year restraining order preventing any contact with the victim. He was also ordered to pay a £228 victim surcharge.
