A controlling and dominating man who raped a vulnerable woman has been jailed for 12 years.

Andrew Rooney was told by a judge he had stripped away the limited amount of self-confidence the victim had and forced her to relive her ordeal in the witness box.

Rooney, 26, of Heritage Drive, Gillingham, was convicted of four offences of rape in February.

He denied six rape charges but the jury could not reach verdicts on the remaining two and they were left on file.

Maidstone Crown Court heard that Rooney was described in a probation report as predatory and having little insight into his offending.

Imran Mahmood, defending, said Rooney found it impossible to face the fact he committed the offences.

“It took a lot for him to come to terms with the offending and that he is the person described,” said Mr Mahmood. “His sexual feelings became difficult to control.

“It has been an act of cowardice on his behalf. It has left his life in a ruin of his own making. I ask to leave him some hope for redemption.”

Judge Jonathan Carroll told Rooney he knew the woman, who is in her 20s, had difficulties and that she held profound religious beliefs involving sex before marriage.

She kept diaries in which she told how she tried to fight off Rooney and begged him to stop. “I am a human being,” she wrote.

The judge said the victim was so lacking in confidence she found it difficult to describe what had been done to her in plain terms. The process was both traumatic and torture.

“Nevertheless, she did find that inner strength to tell the jury what you did, and the jury believed her,” he said.

Judge Carroll continued: “The evidence demonstrates you used force. I don’t suggest it was sustained violence. That was not needed.

“She did try to stop you and you were able to overpower her ability to say no. You used that force to fulfil your sexual desires.”

The judge said he agreed with the assessment that Rooney was manipulative and predatory.

He accepted that some effort had been made to start to realise what he had done. But he had not told his family what he had done and let his father believe the allegations were false.

Rooney’s name will appear on the sex offenders’ register for life.

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