2021: 'ARROGANT' WORCESTER UNIVERSITY STUDENT JAILED AFTER CLAIMING VICTIM 'PLAYED HARD TO GET'
An 'arrogant' ex-Worcester student is now behind bars after he was branded a 'predator' by the woman he sexually assaulted in a pub car park.Samuel Ringer, a former University of Worcester student, who had previously been cleared of a rape offence in an separate incident in Worcester, was convicted of another sexual assault in Derbyshire.
He was found to have groped his unresponsive victim while telling her she was 'just playing hard to get'.
The 22-year-old defendant, who was supported by his dad at court, appeared to have no overnight bag with him in the dock when he was jailed for 27 months by Judge Nicolas Cartwright at Worcester Crown Court.
At a retrial in April the former sports and exercise student was cleared of rape and sexual assault on another woman at her flat in Worcester city centre on January 16, 2018 after both had been drinking at Bushwackers.
However, he still faced a sentence for the sex attack in Derbyshire.
The suited defendant, the son of a senior police officer based in Nottingham, stood still a moment in the dock, seemingly in shock at the sentence.
Ringer of Longfield Lane, Ilkeston, then tilted his head back and pushed out his jaw before he was led downstairs by a dock officer.
Judge Cartwright had told the defendant he had 'pretended to the jury she had been consenting'.
He added : "There has been no remorse whatsoever on your part." Only minutes before Ringer was jailed, the victim of his unwanted advances faced him over a videolink and spoke of the profound impact, both psychological and financial, of the assault against her on July 12, 2018.
She said: "I believe Sam is a repeat offender and a sexual predator who will go to extreme lengths to get what he wants." Ringer, who had no previous convictions, denied the assault only to be convicted by a jury at Hereford Crown Court in December, 2019.
The victim had faced a delay in seeing justice done, forced to await the outcome of the Worcester rape trial, an offence of which Ringer was acquitted in April.
Reading out her damning victim personal statement and fighting back tears, the young woman, who cannot be identified, said: "He knew what he was looking for." "I believe he planned this from the moment he first saw me." She went on to describe his treatment of her as 'disrespectful and disgusting'.
Ringer had been 19 when he carried out the sexual assault and the victim had already declined his offer of a lift home and was waiting for a taxi.
Judge Nicolas Cartwright said: "She didn't know you and had only met you for the first time that evening.
"Outside you said you were cold as a pretext to hug her.
She didn't respond." "She suggested that if he was cold he could wait in his car.
Ringer did this while she remained outside." "But you placed your feet about the lower part of her leg to stop her moving away" said the judge.
Ringer started to touch her bottom, breasts and between her legs and also tried to kiss her in what the judge described as 'an aggressive way' but she avoided his mouth.
"Undeterred by this you put your hand down the back of her trousers, touching her bottom and moving your hands to the front underneath her trousers" said the judge.
The victim 'demanded to know what you were doing and said that you had only met a few hours previously'.
Judge Cartwright told Ringer: "You arrogantly said she wanted the attention.
You said she was just playing hard to get." He described how Ringer's assault had made the victim feel 'vulnerable and frightened'.
She had to leave the company she worked for and the attack had affected her relationship with her boyfriend after she told him what Ringer had done.
"She of course hadn't been unfaithful but was upset that another man had touched her in an intimate way.
"Your offence upon her resulted in the destruction of her relationship with her boyfriend.
"She had been left fearful of men and has suffered sleepless nights for months," said the judge.
Judge Cartwright said there had been 'a significant degree of planning' by Ringer and that he had been 'testing the water' by touching the victim inappropriately throughout the evening as well as making sexual comments.
Ringer had 'engineered the situation outside quite deliberately', capitalising on the opportunity to sexually assault her.
The judge took it as a serious aggravating feature that, when Ringer was told his attentions were unwanted, 'your response to that was to repeat the sexual assault upon her in a yet more serious way'.
As a sex offender, notification and registration provisions now apply to Ringer.
