A MAN who raped a 20-year-old stranger as she lay drunk in a shop doorway on Christmas Eve was today (Friday) starting an eight-year jail sentence.

Andrew John Maylor, 38, of Fron Heulog Cottges, Dolgellau, Gwynedd, was found guilty by a jury after a three-day trial.

Judge Huw Rees told him: “She was alone, vulnerable and unable to care for herself and you took advantage of her. You raped her in a shop doorway and demeaned her and yourself.”

Simon Rogers, prosecuting, described how the alarm had been raised by a van driver as he drove in the town centre of Caernarfon at 12.45am.

The barrister said it was the prosecution case that Maylor had sexual intercourse with the woman in circumstances “in which it would be obvious to him that she was in no fit state to consent”. DNA samples linked Maylor to the attack.

The jury saw a recording of the woman’s interview with police. Asked why she couldn’t remember anything, she said: “I was drunk.”

In video evidence at Caernarfon crown court she described how she and friends visited pubs and nightspots in the town. She had drunk at least seven vodkas and other drinks. Answering Jonathon Austin, defence counsel, she said she could not remember saying to an officer:“No-one has done anything to me.”

Giving evidence, Maylor agreed he had spoken to her but claimed he had tried to help her but at one point they lost their balance and fell to the ground.

He had lifted her up and that was how DNA was linked, he maintained.