A violent rapist who repeatedly assaulted a woman in a town centre alleyway and then claimed to have HIV has been locked up.

Haftom Etebarek, 19, subjected his prone victim to a sustained attack after she brushed off his advances in The Ashford Club, Ashford, in July last year.

Etebarek, of Folkestone, waited for her to be alone before overpowering her in a nearby bin store, jurors heard at Canterbury Crown Court in April.

Following his arrest the Eritrean national would claim to be HIV positive, meaning his victim had to undergo months of medical examinations, the same court was told yesterday.

Etebarek denied three counts of rape but jurors convicted him unanimously following a trial, where his victim told of the violence she suffered at his hands.

“He pushed me down and because I was quite drunk I fell on my bottom and hit my head on a pipe on the wall,” she said in a police interview played to jurors.

“I got up and I started realising what was happening in those few seconds.

“It felt like forever but really fast at the same time.

“I couldn’t get away because I was a little bit too drunk and not balanced, and he was still holding me.

“At this point I was trying to push him away from me, hitting him, I just wasn’t strong enough to do that.”

Jurors heard the woman shunned Etebarek’s advances on the dancefloor moments before he followed her into the town centre alleyway.

The sex offender then subjected the woman, who must remain anonymous for legal reasons, to three acts of rape.

'Sometimes I open my eyes and I am surrounded by my own sweat...'

Opening the prosecution’s case, Dominic Connolly said: “This defendant walked after her, briefly engaged her in conversation and walked with her to the alleyway.

“And while she was in that alleyway he approached her, took hold of her and raped her.”

After she reported the allegation at a later date police attended the nightclub to obtain CCTV.

By chance, Etebarek was inside the venue and he was arrested.

The court heard yesterday Etebarek told police they had consensual sex - which he maintained throughout the trial - and claimed to be HIV positive.

“While being placed into custody he said he was HIV positive, thereafter he refused to answer questions in relation to that.

“Because of the delay in his arrest, it meant it was too late to give the victim any medication," Mr Connolly explained.

The court heard physical examinations conducted while Etebarek was held on remand revealed he tested negative for the virus.

He had also sought to clarify that he was not HIV positive during the initial police interview, his lawyers said.

Yesterday, Etebarek’s victim watched from the public gallery as the rapist learned his fate.

'He has had a very troubled upbringing...'

She told of her anxiety while awaiting the results of repeated HIV screening tests conducted over a duration of around three months.

And she described suffering suicidal thoughts, post-traumatic stress disorder and night terrors in the wake of the attack.

“Some days I can’t move, I can’t be motivated to go to work, some days I stay in bed staring at the ceiling thinking about what happened.

“I don’t ever seem to feel normal, I get sad, I get angry and I have no idea how to control these feelings,” she said.

“Feeling this misery and despair causes a depression I haven’t felt before.

“Sometimes I open my eyes and I am surrounded by my own sweat.”

She continued in the statement read out in court: “I worry about going out, about drinking or staying out late, I don’t really do that anymore.

“I don’t trust people anymore and I don’t even know where to begin trusting people.

“I honestly thought that was it for me, a life with disease because of a man who felt he had the right to take away my right to say no.

“I was so scared.”

''I don’t even know where to begin trusting people...'

Handing down a 10-year sentence inside a Young Offenders' Institute, Judge Simon James said Etebarek claimed to be HIV positive was an “aggravating feature” in the case.

“She was a stranger to you and it is clear she had rebuffed your intentions while inside the club.

"She was obviously very drunk and you obviously took advantage of that vulnerability on what was, in my judgement, a prolonged, sustained and brutal attack committed at night in a public place," he added.

Amy Nicholson, mitigating, highlighted Etebarek was just 18 at the time of his offending, which “speaks to a lack of maturity".

“He has had a very troubled upbringing,” she continued: “He was born in Eritrea, one of six siblings, the youngest of his family, his father, it seems, died as a result of political unrest in Eritrea.

“He had some schooling, a primary education up to grade four when a family crisis necessitated his absence from school to help his mother with chores - fetching water from a well.”

She said Etebarek claimed he grew up in “abject poverty” and fled to the UK to avoid being conscripted in the army.

Appearing in the dock with the aid of an interpreter Etebarek, of Pavilion Road, remained emotionless throughout the sentencing hearing.

He will remain on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

Meanwhile the Home Office will consider his removal from the UK.