It only took one night for him to ruin my life... I hate him

Victim tells of her anguish as rapist is jailed

- By ADAM EVERETT

A TEENAGER says a chef “completely ruined her life in one night” after he violently raped her during a party.

James Elliott “didn’t seem like that sort of lad”, having apparently sought to comfort his victim when she became upset following a row.

But the dad-of-two then “started getting weird” and pinned her onto a bed before subjecting her to a harrowing sexual assault. He then left her bloodied, barefoot and in tears in the street after she fled the flat where the attack occurred.

A trial at Liverpool Crown Court heard that both were socialising at an address in Birkenhead in August 2022 when the complainant went to “calm down” in a bedroom after an argument broke out. Elliott, who had been drinking and taking cocaine, followed the 18-year-old into this room and began hugging her.

But Simon Christie, prosecuting, described how the 30-year-old defendant, of Devonshire Road, then groped her backside and turned off the light before pushing her onto the bed, pinning her down and raping her. The teen attempted to fight him off by kicking out at him, but was unable to do so.

When subsequently interviewed by detectives, she recalled: “He didn’t seem like that sort of lad. He’d been looking after me all night. I felt safe with him. Then he started getting weird. I kept telling him to stop. I just lay there crying. It just wouldn't stop. I kept saying to him, ‘stop, you're really hurting me, stop; as I lay there crying”