15 years in jail for man who raped teenager

with intent.

The court heard that one of those convictions led to a hospital order being made in the early 1990s and Sharma’s barrister James Lake told Recorder Tahir Khan QC that his client had spent nine years in Rampton before being released back into the community.

During the trial the jury heard how Sharma threatened to kill the girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, and she locked herself in a bathroom after being raped by him.

The teenager then tried to protect herself from Sharma’s abuse by wearing two pairs of pyjama bottoms as well as tights and when he tried to attack her again she was able to resist him.

Jailing Sharma for 15 years the judge told him that his victim had clearly carried the burden of the abuse for many years before she had the courage to give evidence against him at court.

Recorder Khan said the crimes were “gravely serious offences” which had been committed in a cruel and cynical way.

He accepted that Sharma was a man with a history of mental health issues, but said he could only take a limited account of that.

Sharma will have to register as a sex offender with the police for the rest of his life and he will also be subject to an indefinite sexual harm prevention order which bans him from having unsupervised contact with under 16s.