Churchgoer’s jail term cut

A churchgoer who followed a middle-aged woman before dropping his trousers has had his jail term slashed on appeal.

Former pharmacy student Joshua David-Okugbeni, 22, had been out all night when he terrified a woman by following her into an alley in Sunderland and pinning her against a wall.

He said he “wanted a kiss” then dropped his trousers, London’s Appeal Court heard.

The victim – who feared she was going to be raped – bravely fought back, stabbing David-Okugbeni in the neck with her keys.

He “ran off with his trousers still down”. After his arrest, it emerged that on the same morning he had followed another woman.

David-Okugbeni, of Cleadon Lea, Cleadon, was jailed for five years four months at Newcastle Crown Court in July last year having pleaded guilty to common assault and committing an assault with intent to commit a sexual offence. Yesterday, at the Appeal Court, Lady Justice Rafferty cut his sentence to three and a half years.

The judge, sitting with Mr Justice Turner and Sir David Calvert, heard that David Okugbeni claimed to police that his trousers had fallen down accidentally – because he had “lost weight.”

Lady Justice Rafferty slammed that explanation as “entirely implausible” and a “risible subterfuge”.

His lawyers argued his sentence was too tough because his intentions “had not been clear”. He was drunk and did not pose a danger to the public generally, it was claimed.

The appeal judges accepted that David-Okugbeni’s original sentence was excessive and cut it to three years six months.