Man jailed for Burnley rape (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Man jailed for Burnley rape

11:00am Saturday 28th July 2012 in News

A MAN who raped a woman in woodland, leaving her naked and injured, has been jailed for five years.

Daniel Lee Green, 22, subjected his 21-year-old victim to the brutal assault after leaving a house party they had both attended in Burnley.

Preston Crown Court heard Green struck the woman above the eye before pushing her into nettle bushes and undergrowth in Bluebell Woods, behind Bluebell Grove, Rosegrove, in the early hours of October 16 last year.

During a five-day trial, the jury heard that Green, of Hargrove Avenue, Padiham, resented his victim as weeks earlier he believed she had told his partner that he had been seen with another woman.

Green, who works as a groundworker, had been thrown out of the home he shared with his partner and prevented from seeing his two-year-old son.

The victim had been at a party celebrating a birthday when Green arrived from a night out in Burnley town centre with two friends.

Witnesses questioned by prosecutor Alison Mather told the court that Green was overheard at the party insulting the woman and said to a friend “don’t worry, she’s going to get it tonight”.

He also confronted her at the house party with his perceived grievance about what was said to his partner.

As the party wound up at about 3am, Green and the woman continued the discussion outside before he attacked her in the secluded wooded area.

The victim told the court Green demanded sex and made threats to kill her.

She said: “I didn’t want sex with him. I just felt disgusting.”

The court heard when Green left the scene his victim was naked and distressed.

She found her dress close to railings and a police officer later recovered her underwear from the scene.

A forensic nurse examiner found abrasions and a rash to her upper arm, both her legs and knees were soiled with mud and she had abrasions to her lower leg.

At around 5am she returned to her friends’ house where the party had been held. Witnesses said her hair was dishevelled, her eye swollen and she was covered in mud.

In her distressed state, she told her friends: “No, no, no. Why has this happened to me?

“I can’t believe this has happened to me.”

Green told the court that after he discussed the reasons for his grievance with her, the pair had began to chat cordially, they had kissed near the woods and that intercourse was consensual.

As the guilty verdict was delivered, Green bowed his head and wept.

Sentencing him to five years imprisonment, Judge Michael Byrne, said: “You resented your victim very much about what you believed had been said to your partner.

“There was an element of you getting your own back.”

Green, who had no relevant previous convictions, will also be placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register.