Camper is jailed for raping girl, 18, in tent
9:20am Friday 10th February 2012 in Your Town
A HOLIDAYMAKER who raped a drunken teenager after she collapsed unconscious in his tent has been jailed for five years.
Michael Aspinall, aged 28, of Dixon Street, Westhoughton, was twice caught having sex with the 18-year-old as she lay unconscious in his tent at the Trevelgue holiday park near Newquay.
The teenager had earlier been found by other holidaymakers when she collapsed in a drunken state in the corner of the campsite after a night out in Newquay.
Aspinall offered to look after her and took her back to his tent, Truro Crown Court heard.
When security guards at the campsite later decided to check on her, they found Aspinall having sex with her.
They told him to get dressed and get outside, but moments later, discovered Aspinall having sex with the unconscious girl again.
Aspinall, who told the security guards “it’s not what it looks like”, claimed the teenager had consented to having sex with him.
The court heard she remembered nothing of the incident before waking up in hospital.
The jury of eight men and four women took less than three hours to unanimously find him guilty of rape.
Judge Christopher Harvey Clark QC told him: “You committed a terrible offence because that young woman has been deeply affected by what happened.
“She has dropped out of university, ceased to be the happy girl that she was and, in the words of her mother, she has become at times a person they hardly know.”
Glazier Aspinall, who has a daughter but is separated from his longterm partner, must now sign the sex offenders’ register for life.
