A TEENAGER facing jail for the horrific double rape of a woman in an Essex town has had his sentencing adjourned after his dad was killed in a car crash.

James Hore

A TEENAGER facing jail for the horrific double rape of a woman in an Essex town has had his sentencing adjourned after his dad was killed in a car crash.

Lewis McKinneyhad already admitted the New Year's Eve attack on the woman in Brightlingsea and the assault of another at a hearing last month.

The 18-year-old was due to be sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court yesterday, but his defence barrister, who refused to give her name to the press, was granted an adjournment after it emerged McKinney's dad had been killed in a car crash in Thailand.

She said that since being told the news in prison by embassy officials, McKinney had started to self-harm.

“The concern is his frame of mind is not in the place it should be,” she said.

The court heard that on the night of the attacks, McKinney had been smoking two types of cannabis and drinking a “relatively large” amount of alcohol and could not even remember attacking the 49-year-old woman.

His barrister said: “He is shocked and somewhat at a loss to explain why this completely out of character incident occurred and can only be put down to the cocktail.”

It also emerged that McKinney had been released from prison shortly before the attack on the woman took place.

Judge Rodger Hayward Smith QC said it was a “very, very ,very serious case, and somewhat bizarre”.

At the earlier hearing, McKinney, of Bellfield Avenue, Brightlingsea, pleaded guilty to two rapes and one attempted rape against a woman who cannot be named.

He also admitted a count of common assault against a second victim, a 60-year-old woman.

Unemployed McKinney was remanded in custody to appear before the same court on May 7.

The charges all relate to New Year's Eve last year when police were called to a property in Brightlingsea where they found two women in a distressed state.

McKinney was arrested soon afterwards and charged within days.