A WIDOWER who offered to help a woman more than half his age home from the pub and then later raped her when she fell asleep has been jailed for more than five years.

Terrence Lewis denied raping the woman, who was in her 20s, but a jury found him guilty at Oxford Crown Court on Friday, July 10.

The court heard that Lewis, then 54, had been drinking at a pub in March 2013 when the woman arrived, already quite drunk.

Judge Ian Pringle QC said that Lewis, of Tyrrells Way, Sutton Courtenay, that he would have known she was drunk because she was sick not long after they left.

He added: “She clearly had had a few to drink that evening and stayed on quite late until around midnight when you and her left.

“You offered to walk her home, I am sure at that stage with good intentions.”

He said that the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, accepted Lewis’s offer of a cup of tea or coffee at his house because she had been upset and he had been a sympathetic ear.

Judge Pringle said that she fell asleep at Lewis’s house, woke up to find her dress out of place and tights around her ankles.

He said: “You, Terrence Lewis, had taken advantage of her when she was in no state to consent.

“She woke from her slumber and realised something had happened.”

Defending, Alexandra Bull appealed for his sentencing to be adjourned so that Lewis could fight a council decision to evict him from his home, but Judge Pringle rejected her motion.

Miss Bull said that her client has successfully brought up two children since his wife died in childbirth in 1994.

She added: “That had a significant impact on him.

“He raised the children alone. Both have done well for themselves. He has raised two young men who will be useful members of society.”

She told the court on Thursday that Lewis’ job as a decontamination team leader, providing medical equipment to terminally ill people who wish to die at home, was being kept open for him.

Appealing for as short a sentence as possible, she told the court that the attack was not premeditated.

She said Lewis had not plied the woman with alcohol or drugs.

She added: “The consequences of his actions are of course that he will lose his liberty and his job, and he is now going to possibly lose his home.

“But also significantly for him, he has spent 30 years building up a reputation.

“That reputation has to the face of it tumbled to the ground.”

Judge Pringle said that although Lewis did not accept his guilt, he accepted his contribution to his sons and his community.

But, because of the abuse of trust and age of the woman Judge Pringle jailed Lewis, now 56, for five-and-a-half years.

He said: “It did involve some abuse of trust because it was clear this young woman trusted you.

“You were easily old enough to be her father.”