A Westhill man has been jailed for rape after a jury was told his victim ran into a residential street half naked and screamed for help.
The woman had earlier dubbed her attacker Don Webley “a beast” and pleaded for help in messages before she fled from the flat where she was subjected to the ordeal.
Webley, 42, of Mackie Place, Westhill, had denied raping the woman at his then home at a flat in Granton Medway, Edinburgh, on September 18 2022 and claimed in a special defence that sexual activity between them was consensual.
But a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh convicted him on a majority verdict of committing the sex crime during which he grabbed the woman, removed her lower clothing, licked her ear and raped her.
Webley was acquitted of attempting to murder the victim by placing an arm around her and compressing her neck, restricting her breathing.
‘A dreadful crime’
A judge told Webley: “It is a statement of the obvious that you have been convicted of an appalling offence.”
Judge Michael O’Grady KC added rape was a “dreadful crime” which was cruel and humiliating.
The judge said: “It is clear from the evidence of this young woman’s condition in the aftermath of the attack that this was a harrowing attack. This was a brutal violation of a vulnerable young woman for whom you showed complete contempt.”
He told jurors that Webley had a significant criminal record, including for violence, but not for sexual offending.
The judge deferred sentence on him for the preparation of a background report and Webley, who was on bail during his trial, was remanded in custody.
Traumatised woman found in street
The court heard that on the Sunday morning when the rape occurred a man walking along Granton Medway towards a baker’s shop came across the woman screaming and shouting: “Phone the police.”
The woman was crying and hysterical and only wearing a top and he made a 999 call to emergency services.
PC David Parsons was one of the officers who responded to the call and found the woman sitting in a dark recess in a stairwell on the street.
He said: “She was sitting on the ground with her back against the wall. She had her knees up to her chest and she was holding her knees, sort of cradling herself in that position.”
He noticed she was wearing a hoodie and was “sort of whimpering”.
Incriminating text messages
He said: “She told me she had been raped and she had run away. She told me she had run away from a flat in that street but didn’t know which one.”
The officer said: “She told me it was Don Webley and Don Webley had raped her. She told me it happened more than once. She told me she was choked and thought she was going to die.”
“She was struggling to speak, she was that upset. She was struggling to breathe because she was crying so much,” he said.
The woman told a policewoman that she was at the flat with others but was left alone with Webley after they departed.
Messages were found on her phone asking for help and saying she was trying to get away. One said: “He is a beast.”
During a search at Webley’s flat police found trainers, jogging bottoms, pants and a handbag belonging to the woman.
Webley was placed on the sex offenders’ register following his conviction for the rape of the woman who did not give evidence during the trial.