Rapist jailed for 12 years for Bedworth attack

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Rapist jailed for 12 years for Bedworth attack

Postby dutchman » Tue Jul 24, 2018 8:35 pm

Matthew Whitehall was also found guilty of making threats to kill

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A Bedworth man who raped a woman and then threatened to kill her family if she told anyone has been jailed for more than a decade.

Matthew Whitehall was unanimously found guilty of raping the victim, who is in her 20s, at a property in the town on Friday, January 19.

After the attack he forced the terrified woman to have a bath and then made the threats about her family.

The incident led to an armed policing operation around Whitehall’s home address in Smorrall Lane two days later, before he handed himself in at Nuneaton police station.

Following a trial at Warwick Crown Court, 25-year-old Whitehall was convicted rape and other offences, including making threats to kill, and jailed for 12 years.

He was also handed a 20-year restraining order.

Whitehall was cleared of a further charge of possession of a bladed article.

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Re: Rapist jailed for 12 years for Bedworth attack

Postby dutchman » Wed Jan 16, 2019 4:35 pm

Judges slash knifepoint rapist's "excessive" sentence

A Bedworth man who raped a woman before forcing her to wash away evidence in a bath had his sentence cut by judges.

Following his conviction, Whitehall received a 12 year sentence at Warwick Crown Court. for rape and making a threat to kill.

But today, after an appeal to top judges, Whitehall's "manifestly excessive" sentence was cut to ten years.

Mrs Justice Laing told the Court of Appeal that too much weight had been given to aggravating features of the case.

"We quash the sentence of 12 years' imprisonment and substitute for it a sentence of ten years," she said.

Lawyers for Whitehall argued that the trial judge had placed too much weight on the threats when sentencing.

The violence used did not go beyond that which is inherent in an offence of rape, appeal judges were told.

Ruling, Mrs Justice Laing said the victim had been "humiliated and degraded" by Whitehall.

That justified a long sentence, but not as much as 12 years, she added.

The judge, sitting with Lord Justice Gross and Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, cut the sentence to ten years.

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