Convicted sex offender jailed for attack on woman in Lincoln

A convicted sex offender who followed a woman as she was walking home from a night out and then attacked her has been jailed for four years at Lincoln Crown Court.

Mark Bestwick spotted his victim as she walked along Free School Lane in Lincoln city centre.

Bestwick ran after the 26-year-old and pursued her into Sincil Street.

Gordon Stables, prosecuting, said: "He tried to talk to her. He followed her for some way.

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"He noticed she had a mobile phone in her hand and was speaking to someone. He knocked the phone from her hand. He then grabbed hold of her and forced her into an alleyway where he pinned her against the wall and sexually assaulted her.

"He was trying to get her trousers undone. She resisted. She struggled and she shouted. None of that had an effect until she said that her boyfriend was on the way coming to meet her. The defendant then stopped and made his way off."

Mr Stables said the woman feared she was about to be raped and has been left traumatised by what happened.

The victim flagged down a passing police car and moments later her boyfriend arrived to help her.

Bestwick, 33, of no fixed address, denied sexual assault in the early hours of May 6 claiming he accidentally bumped into the woman after stumbling while he was drunk.

The jury took just 35 minutes to bring in a guilty verdict.

The court was told that Bestwick was convicted of an almost identical offence in May, 2010, when he attacked a lone woman while staying in the French city of Marseilles.

Passing sentence, Judge Michael Heath told Bestwick: "It is clear that there is not a shred of remorse in your body about what happened.

"The account, which you put forward of an accident and the circumstances was, frankly, absurd."