Locations
Bramham Drive, Harrogate, HG3
Description
A man has been jailed for a “humiliating and degrading” sex attack on a young woman at a property in Harrogate.
Andrew Reekie, 33, left the woman “haunted” and an emotional wreck following the “absolutely disgusting” assault, York Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Shaun Dodds said the victim tried to kick Reekie off her during the assault and told him to “get off”. She was crying afterwards and told a friend what had happened.
Reekie told her she “wouldn’t dare ring the police” but she plucked up the courage to do so.
Reekie, of Bramham Drive, Jennyfields, was brought in for questioning two months after the attack but refused to answer police questions.
He was charged with sexual assault but denied the offence, only to plead guilty on the day of trial in January. He appeared for sentence yesterday.
The court heard he had previous convictions for serious violence, public disorder, acquisitive crime, possessing an offensive weapon, robbery, criminal damage and breaching court orders.
The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said that “life as I knew it came to an abrupt and sudden halt” following the sex attack. She added:
“I was paralysed (with fear) and completely helpless.”
She said she was “powerless” to stop Reekie and she had felt an inexplicable but “overwhelming shame” since the incident, adding:
“I felt completely alone and unable to trust anyone.
“The sound of his voice will (continue) to play in my head. It was like a knife in my guts.”
Nightmares and shame
She said that after the attack she “couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep or socialise”.
She had nightmares of other women being sexually assaulted and she was “more and more anxious that it was going to happen to somebody else”.
She said that even reporting the attack only “intensified the shame” and she developed serious mental-health problems.
It had affected her work and she had felt “traumatised” about the prospect of giving evidence in court.