RUGBY FAN WAS LOCKED UP FOR THREE YEARS FOR A SEX ATTACK ON A MOTHER OF TWO.
A GWENT rugby fan was locked up for three years for a sex attack on a mother of two.Michael John, 19, was in tears as he was led to the cells after a judge rejected testimonials and a plea for leniency.
The indecent assault followed an all-day pub crawl in Edinburgh on the weekend of the Scotland v Wales international in February last year.
An earlier trial heard how the terrified 29-year-old mum was found wandering barefoot and half-dressed near a hotel in the Leith area of the city, where rugby supporters from South Wales were partying.
She had returned to the hotel with them after being chatted up in a night-club where three Welshmen had ended up after visiting several pubs in Edinburgh.
The trial jury cleared Paul Williams, aged 25, and David Williams, aged 20, of Merthyr Road, Abergavenny, of allegations of raping her.
During the trial at the High Court in Edinburgh last month, the 29-year-old woman said she didn't know what John had done to her and had "blacked out".
Factory worker John, of Waungron, Cwmcelyn, Blaina, was found guilty, by majority, of indecently assaulting her with an aerosol can.
Sentencing him to detention yesterday, Judge Roderick Macdonald, QC, told him he had been convicted of "a serious and nasty sexual assault".
The judge continued: "The state of extreme distress in which your victim was discovered in the street in the early hours of the morning was plainly due, to a significant extent, to the sexual abuse - for that is what it was - to which you subjected her." During the trial John claimed the woman made no protest about what he was doing.
But Judge Macdonald blasted: "The attitude you displayed in the course of your evidence of what you had done, I find quite deplorable." Solicitor advocate Alex Prentice, defending, said a number of testimonials had been lodged on John's behalf.
"John is someone who has achieved much and is held in high esteem by a variety of people in his own community," said the lawyer.
John felt "disgraced and disgusted" by what had happened and showed genuine remorse, added Mr Prentice.
John's name has also been added to the sex offenders' register.
