after jury find him guilty of rape charge

A CREDITON man has been sent to prison for six years after he was convicted of rape.

Robert Litster (30) of Landscore, Crediton, denied rape but was found guilty at Exeter Crown Court.

Litster was said to have waited for his victim, a young student who "crashed out" on his sofa after a night out, to fall asleep before the attack took place.

He denied that any sexual activity had taken place but was found guilty by a jury at Exeter Crown Court after forensic tests showed his DNA inside her body.

The victim was a 20-year-old student who was sleeping over at Litster's flat after a night out visiting pubs in Crediton.

He returned from a party elsewhere in the town and watched a television programme with the woman after his partner went to bed.

The victim said she drifted in and out of consciousness, had a recollection of sex taking place and that she had tried to push him off but had drunk four pints of lager at the Mitre pub in Crediton and vodka and coke at his home.

She woke the next day to find her jeans pulled off and a duvet put over her and was not certain she had been raped until she went to the police and forensic tests confirmed it.

Litster said from the outset that they had not had sex. He said his only contact with her was to put a duvet over her. He had no explanation for the DNA evidence found close to the neck of the victim's womb.

His defence barrister Mr Paul Grumbar suggested the jury might reject the accounts of both victim and defendant and consider whether consensual sex had taken place and that both were too embarrassed to admit it.

Litster was found guilty after a three-day hearing of the case and was jailed by Judge Barry Cotter, QC, who told him he had taken advantage of the situation and left his victim having to cope with the emotional impact and upset of the attack.