A 21-YEAR-OLD man raped a teenage girl as she slept after a house party.

Anthony Stinson admitted ‘taking advantage’ of the youngster, who had been drinking alcohol, after being invited to a house in Clitheroe.

Yesterday he was sentenced to five years in prison for the attack.

A court heard how the defendant, of Derby Street, attacked his victim as she lay face down on the floor.

When the girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, realised what was happening to her, she screamed and ran upstairs, the court was told.

Nick Courtney, prosecuting at Preston Crown Court, said the victim had described in her impact statement how she had been left feeling humiliated.

He said: “She often cries herself to sleep at night.

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“She feels isolated. She stays in most of the time. That leaves her more time to think about the rape and also how much she misses the support of her father, who died some time ago.”

When Stinson, a chef at Mitton Hall, was arrested, the court was told he admitted the charge, but decided to plead not guilty at court.

It was not until the day of his trial that he changed his plea and admitted what he had done.

Defending, Judith McCullough agreed there was a degree of ‘specific targeting’ of a vulnerable victim because she was asleep during the attack in the early hours of September 8 last year.

She said: “He, unlike many who come before the courts, takes full responsibility for this offence.

“His guilty plea is absolute and is genuine.

“He does not seek to minimise his role.

“He had a period of employment at Mitton Hall where stress had got the better of him and at the time he felt in himself to be suffering from anxiety.

“But that, of course, does not go so far as to explain his actions. He is very sorry for what he did.”

Judge Stuart Baker, sentencing Stinson, said: “The case is so serious that a substantial term of imprisonment must be imposed.

This was a case in which the complainant would have considered herself to be in a safe environment.

“In these circumstances, she would have felt that she was not at risk of being molested.”