Rugby man who sexually assaulted a young woman has been given a suspended prison sentence

A man who sexually assaulted a young woman has been given a suspended sentence.

Ian Timms, of Murray Road, Rugby, at the time, had pleaded not guilty at Warwick Crown Court to assaulting his victim in the summer of 2016.

After more than six hours the jury was unable to agree on a verdict – but Timms (40) now of Lincoln, then pleaded guilty to an alternative offence of sexual assault.

He was sentenced to two years in prison suspended for 12 months, with an electronically-tagged curfew from 7pm to 7am for three months, and was ordered to register as a sex offender for ten years.

Prosecutor Rebecca Wade said the incident dated back to the summer of 2016.

One day in October that year the victim’s aunt noticed she did not seem her usual self, although when asked if there was anything she wanted to talk about, she said she was OK.

She later sent her aunt a Facebook message asking if she could give her a letter, and was crying when she handed it over.

The letter revealed that Timms had sexually assaulted her.

Timms said that "he knew what he had done was wrong, and that he had misread the signals".

The jury heard Timms suffers from Sturge Weber Sydrome and had a seizure in 2019 which has affected his mobility, as a result of which he came into court in a wheelchair – but he did not have that problem at the time, pointed out Miss Wade.