Man jailed for student sex attack

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/8010169.stm

Version 0 of 1.

A student who carried out a "terrifying and degrading" sexual assault at Dundee University residences has been locked up for five years.

Calum Cuthill, 20, has been sent to a young offenders institute for the brutal attack on an 18-year-old woman.

He prevented the teenager from leaving the flat in West Park Villas, Perth Road, in November 2007.

Cuthill, from Scone, then threatened her with violence and sexually assaulted her, leaving her injured.

He denied any wrongdoing, claiming the sexual acts had been consensual, but a jury at the High Court in Dundee found him guilty by a unanimous verdict after a trial in February.

He was placed on the sex offenders register.

Cuthill, from Park Terrace, Scone, has now been sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh.

You subjected her to an ordeal which was both terrifying and degrading. Judge Edward Bowen

Temporary judge, Edward Bowen, QC, told Cuthill: "I make no secret of the fact that I find this a distressing case and a difficult case to deal with.

"You are a young man on the threshold of life, intelligent with a good background.

"You had everything going for you and whilst those maybe said to be factors in your favour, I have to say that they also make your behaviour on this occasion even more difficult to understand."

He told the court that Cuthill continued to deny he had done anything wrong.

"The fact is that you have been convicted by unanimous verdict of a jury with compelling evidence of a grave attack on a young woman who had done nothing other than offer you friendship," the judge said.

"You subjected her to an ordeal which was both terrifying and degrading."

His victim had to give up her university course and return home after the attack.

Cuthill's sentence has been backdated to February.