A sexual predator picked up a drunk and vulnerable teenager in a van she believed was a taxi and raped her while she was unconscious.

Peter Wrotchford found the young woman walking alone in Folkestone at 4am, and over the course of five hours sexually assaulted her in multiple locations around the town.

The 46-year-old, who had placed signage on his vehicle in what was suggested to be an attempt to disguise it as a cab, claimed his actions were consensual.

But a jury saw through his lies and this week unanimously found him guilty of rape and sexual assault.

On the night of the attack in September last year, his 19-year-old victim had been at a nightclub in Folkestone before she wandered off, and was spotted in Tram Road by Wrotchford, who was driving in the area.

Prosecutor Martin Yale suggested Wrotchford had intentionally disguised his van as a taxi by attaching to it magnetic signs for the community project he volunteered for.

Mr Yale told the jury at Canterbury Crown Court: "CCTV images show [the victim] walking in the gutter of the road and the defendant’s car circling back around to pick her up.

“She thought his car was a taxi. On the side of it was signage which may have given the impression it was a taxi; it may well have been the impression he was intending to give […] to help him take advantage of a vulnerable woman.”

The teenager got into the back of the vehicle and asked to be taken home, but Wrotchford, of Ashley Avenue, Folkestone, drove her to a secluded pull-off area away from the town centre and sexually assaulted her.

He then drove to Farthing Common car park before returning home and changing his clothes, stopping at a petrol station to buy a chocolate bar and water, and then driving to a lay-by on the A20 at Frogholt - all while the teenager lay half-naked and unconscious in the back seat.

It was here that Wrotchford sexually assaulted the young woman again and raped her, before she woke up not knowing where she was.

“As I woke up I was thinking, I don’t know what’s happened, I don’t know where I am. My bra was off and my pants and underwear were only on one leg,” the young woman recounted in a police interview.

“When I woke up he was masturbating, and he kept telling me to give him a kiss and then I said ‘no, just take me home’, but he just kept on touching himself and asking me to kiss him.

“I was really scared, I didn’t say anything else because I didn’t want to say the wrong thing in case he did something else to me.”

The teenager told police that Wrotchford did eventually drive her to a friend’s house, and as she got out of the car he told her "I’m not going to forget you".

During the five-day trial, Wrotchford claimed the woman had flagged him down and told him there was a group of men harassing her down the street.

He claimed he offered to give her a lift home, but that shortly after she got into his car she asked to smoke cannabis with him.

Wrotchford said they decided to go to a lay-by outside of town to smoke and that on the way there she became upset that she had apparently lost her phone.

The defendant, who has by his own admission solicited sex from prostitutes many times in the past, said that once they had arrived, a search in the car for the woman’s phone quickly developed into consensual sex acts.

“She was asking me to have sex with her,” said Wrotchford during his cross-examination,

“There was nothing about her that made me think she was too drunk to consent.”

Mr Yale pointed out that four hours after Wrotchford had picked up the young woman, blood alcohol content analysis estimates she would have been more than two-and-a-half times the legal limit to drive.

“She was in no fit state to consent to any form of sexual activity and it is clear from her account that she did not," he said.

“It’s clear that he preyed on her vulnerability to rape her, and sexually assault her.

“And he is arrogant enough to think he can just talk his way out of it.

“She was in no fit state to consent to any form of sexual activity and it is clear from her account that she did not..."

“He has tried to reframe the facts so that he goes from a rapist preying on an extremely vulnerable young girl to being a good Samaritan protecting her from a group of boys and then, as he would put it, getting lucky."

The jury retied to consider its verdict on Friday afternoon and yesterday returned guilty pleas on one charge of rape and three relating to sexual assaults.

There were gasps from the public gallery when the verdicts were read out, but Wrotchford himself remained emotionless.

Recorder Christopher Stirling told him to expect a lengthy spell in prison when he is sentenced on April 14.

"You will understand that by adjourning I haven’t made up my mind what [the sentence] will be," he said.

"But obviously it will be a very lengthy custodial sentence in any event."

Wrotchford was remanded into custody while probation reports are carried out to consider if he is potentially a dangerous offender.