CHAT LINE RAPIST ANDREW COLE JAILED FOR FOUR YEARS IN LOWESTOFT
A MENTAL health patient who raped a single mother he met via a telephone chat line has been jailed for four years.Andrew Cole chatted to the 27-year-old woman online and via text messages before he went to her home in Lowestoft and subjected her to a terrifying 16-hour ordeal.
Ipswich Crown Court heard that 31-year-old Cole, of Balantyne Drive, Colchester, and his victim shared sexually explicit text messages but had not met face-to-face until February 16 this year.
Cole visited the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, at her home and the pair had consensual intercourse shortly after he arrived at about 4.30am.
However, his behaviour soon became erratic and later the same morning he subjected her to a brutal rape which left her covered in bruises and teeth marks.
Sentencing Cole yesterday judge Neil McKittrick said: “Maybe both she and you expected your visit would lead quickly to sexual intimacies between you and these intimacies soon led to consensual conventional sexual intercourse.” The woman said she had no idea that Cole was a Bipolar manic depressive and a hyper maniac, but noticed he was acting strangely while he was in her house and at one point he emptied a bag of medication on to the living room floor.
Cole stayed in the woman's home for 16 hours, during which time he poured a hot drink over her and urinated on her living room floor, into glasses of drink and on her sofa and bedding.
Her ordeal only ended when she managed to get out of her house and get help from a neighbour.
Cole denied the charges of rape and common assault but was found guilty at Ipswich Crown Court in August.
After Cole was found guilty, his victim said that her life had been left in tatters by the brutal attack.
Jacqueline Carey, mitigating, said her client had not planned the attack and that Cole, who had been sectioned on four occasions, had suffered a decline in his illness which led to his offending.
Judge McKittrick said: “It is a highly unusual set of circumstances.” He said Cole's victim was a vulnerable, lonely single mother and Cole had a mental illness for which he had not taken medication and the alcohol may have uninhibited him.
Cole was jailed for four years and told the 297 days he had served on remand in custody would be included in that sentence.
A Sexual Offences Prevention Order was made to prevent Cole contacting his victim or going to Lowestoft and he was banned from making contact with any women through chat sites or dating agencies or from encouraging women to contact him by placing advertisements of any kind.
