Two men jailed 12 years for raping woman after Christmas party

Simon Coombes and another man, who can’t be named for legal reasons, had given the woman a lift after a Christmas party but instead of driving her home they had taken her to a flat in Mildenhall and raped her, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Because of her state of intoxication the woman couldn’t remember the attack but contacted the police after discovering her clothes had been ripped and she had a number of injuries including bruising and abrasions.

Coombes, of Queensway in Mildenhall, and his co-defendant had both denied raping the woman vaginally and orally in December 2018 but were convicted by a jury after a trial.

Jailing Coombes for 12 years and six months with an extended licence period of five years, and jailing his co-defendant for 12 years with an extended licence period of five years, Recorder Jeremy Benson described both men as dangerous and said they had been assessed by the probation service as being at high risk of reoffending.

He said there had been an element of abduction in the attack as instead of taking the woman home they had taken her to a flat in Mildenhall where the rape took place.

Recorder Benson said the men had raped the practically unconscious woman individually.

He said he had read an impact statement from the victim in which she described being left traumatised by what had happened to her.

In addition to jailing the men he banned them from contacting the victim indefinitely and ordered them to sign the sex offenders’ register.

The court heard that Coombes had tried to kill himself and self harm in the past.

Matthew Sorel-Cameron, for the defendant who cannot be named, said the defendants had taken advantage of the victim and hadn’t pre-planned what happened.

He accepted that the level of the woman’s intoxication had made her vulnerable and said his client had no previous convictions for sexual offences.

“What happened was a single incident. It isn’t a pattern of offending,” he said.