Rapist who attacked same woman twice in the Highlands is jailed
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A rapist who sent his Highland victim a message saying that what he had done was so horrible he could not live with himself has been jailed for seven and a half years.
Stephen Coffey raped the same woman in two separate attacks in the Highlands committed 18 months apart.
After the second sex assault at a house in an Inverness-shire village the victim was seen in a distressed state and police were contacted.
Coffey (31) denied raping the woman on January 15 last year and claimed that sex was consensual, but was unanimously convicted of the sex attack by a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh today.
During the assault on the 32-year-old woman he pinned her on a bed, exposed himself and repeatedly raped her.
Coffey was also found guilty on a majority verdict of raping the same woman on July 1, 2017 at a house in Inverness when she was sleeping and incapable of consenting to sex.
He had also denied that charge.
A judge told Coffey: "You have a disgraceful criminal record dating from December 2005. It consists of 35 court appearances and, by my calculation, 56 separate offences and 18 separate custodial sentences."
He added: "You have six convictions for assault and one for hamesucken, which means assaulting someone in their own home, for which you received a sentence of 12 months."
He pointed out that Coffey, a prisoner in Inverness, had breached numerous bail orders.
He told Coffey that, following his sentence, he would be placed on the sex offenders' register for an indefinite period.
The woman told the court that when Coffey turned up at her home prior to the most recent attack she thought he was under the influence of drugs.
The court heard that Coffey went "crazy" after finding something on the woman's phone when he looked at it.
She said Coffey took down her pyjama trousers and underwear despite her repeatedly telling him "no".
She said: "I told him 'no' several times."
She told the court that he had sent her a message confessing to what he had done.
In a message Coffey sent he wrote: "What I have done is so horrible I can't live with myself."
The woman later saw a friend, who described her as shocked, crying and struggling to get her words out, and told her what happened.
Defence counsel Ian Duguid QC said: "He has had an unfortunate past blighted, as he explained it, by his involvement with drugs. No doubt his offending history reflects the fact that he was addicted to controlled drugs in the past."
Mr Duguid said Coffey did not have a record for sexual offending.
