COURT INCREASES JAIL TIME FOR OXFORDSHIRE HOTEL RAPIST
A self-confessed ‘devil’ who ordered his victim to carry out a series of degrading sex acts on camera then raped her in a laundry cupboard has had more than three years added to his jail time.Hotel manager Paul Harris, 36, was jailed for eight years and nine months last December after he admitted holding the woman against her will, rape and forcing her to engage in sexual activity.
But that jail time has now been increased to 12 years after the Court of Appeal agreed with lawyers for the Attorney General that the earlier sentence was unduly lenient.
Lady Justice Macur, delivering the judgement, said: “As far as culpability is concerned it appears to us that this was a course of behaviour which was persistent and which has led to significant psychological harm.
There was the use of a dangerous object [a bottle, used as a sex toy].
There was additional humiliation and degradation by the use of a belt as a dog leash.
It was a sustained incident over the course of several hours.” The fact the encounter was filmed was the ‘cause of great humiliation’ to the victim, she added.
The victim, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said she felt she’d been living in a ‘horror movie’.
She added: “Never in my life will I trust a single soul again, not even my family.
I feel absolutely numb.” Harris, of Bilston, Wolverhampton, told police officers he’d been trying to get ‘pay back’ after his victim scratched him.
He described himself as a ‘devil’ when he lost his temper.
Harris had held his victim against her will for two to three days, forced her to strip naked on camera, and raped her in a laundry cupboard.
He tied a belt around her neck and ordered her to crawl across the floor of his room ‘like a dog’.
He then filmed her sobbing in fear as she was forced to perform her sex acts on herself using the neck of a glass bottle and a sex toy.
Harris, who described himself as a ‘devil’, was also involved in a case where he was filmed abusing his victim at an Oxfordshire hotel, and his jail sentence was increased on appeal after the original sentence was deemed unduly lenient.
