Man jailed for raping woman in Aberdeenshire

Kristopher Mayo was sentenced to five years in prison

Published 26th Aug 2016

A rapist was jailed for five years after a court was earlier shown photos of injuries to his victim taken by the woman herself after the sex attack.

The woman said she took the pictures on her mobile phone after she was assaulted by Kristopher Mayo at a house in Ellon, in Aberdeenshire. The 33-year-old said she sent the photos to a relative in a plea for help.

She said that bruising was starting to appear on her chest and told advocate depute Mark Mcguire it had been caused by Mayo restraining her.

She said: "He just pushed down. It was like a dead weight on my chest. It was hard to breath."

The woman also took pictures of a hand injury and said: "I had cut myself. I wasn't sure what I had cut myself on. Again I wanted to document what had happened."

She added that blood on her hand had come from a split lip she sustained when her face was shoved into a bed.

A judge told Mayo at the High Court in Edinburgh that he had raped the woman despite her rejecting his sexual advances and sobbing with distress.

Lady Scott said: "This was a lengthy ordeal for your frightened victim."

The judge said she took into account that Mayo was a first offender and was not considered to present a risk of serious harm at this time.

Mayo, 31, formerly of Station Road, Ellon, had earlier denied assaulting and repeatedly raping the woman on February 15 last year at a house in the town. But a jury convicted him on a majority verdict of the sex crime.

During the assault he pushed her onto a bed, forced her head into a duvet, restricting her ability to breathe, struggled with her, pinned her to a bed and molested her.

The woman, who gave her evidence screened from Mayo, told the court that she had not wanted to "engage in any sexual contact of any description" at the time of the incident.

She said that Mayo, who could be "Jekyll and Hyde", got angry after she started to get loud and shouted 'No'. She said he flipped her over on a bed and pushed her faced into the duvet and mattress.

She said that as turned over she was pinned down across her chest. "I asked him to please stop. He was hurting me," she said, adding: "He kept telling me to shut up."

The woman told the court: "I just shut myself off. I didn't want to be in that room. I was afraid for my own life."

She said that following the assault she had cried. She said she had taken the photographs in the morning after the sex attack when there was better light.

Defence counsel Michael Anderson said: "I recognise, as does the accused, that a sentence of imprisonment is inevitable for the offence of which he was convicted."

"He will during the sentence of imprisonment take all the opportunities available to him to better himself," he said.

Mayo was remanded in custody earlier this month after the guilty verdict. He was placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.