A rape victim brought her attacker to justice after she secretly recorded him admitting to his crime.
Jade Bailey-Reeks, 21, bravely waived her right to anonymity yesterday after Haydon Davis-Patton, 23, was jailed.
Care assistant Jade woke partially clothed beside Davis-Patton after telling him she did not want to have sex as she was ill and tired after a long day’s work.
She realised immediately what had happened, but as they were dating she was unsure if it would be treated as rape.
However, she became convinced of his guilt when he deleted messages he had sent to her phone relating to the attack.
So she secretly recorded his confession on her phone and took it to police.
She has now released it to encourage other victims to come forward.
She said: “I’m so glad I did. It meant he had little choice but to plead guilty. I didn’t have to give evidence.
“He said it was what guys do, that men do it all the time. I now realise what he did was not OK. It was rape.”
The two were next-door neighbours and had been dating for a few weeks at the time of the attack in July 2017.
Jade said: “I’d been working as a carer and a hairdresser and was feeling tired and poorly. He said he was locked out and asked to stay over. I had a double bed. We hadn’t slept together before.
“I made it clear: ‘I don’t want to sleep with you.’
“When I woke up and my clothes were off I realised straight away he’d had sex with me while I’d been asleep. I couldn’t believe anyone would do that. I was in shock.”
After he deleted messages that he had sent the following month apologising for the rape, she decided to go to police.
She knew she would need strong evidence, because some time had passed since the attack.
So she recorded him talking about it as he drove with her one day.
In the recording, she tells him: “I specifically said I didn’t want to have sex because I had a bad belly but you must have been horny. I don’t know if it’s OK that you did it in my sleep.”
She later asks Davis-Patton what he did, and he says: “You know what I did.” She replies: “I don’t... I was sleeping.”
Shopping centre worker Davis-Patton, of Newcastle, was jailed for four years at the city’s crown court and ordered to sign the sex offender register for life. He was also handed a 10-year order banning any contact with Jade.
Judge Edward Bindloss told him: “You betrayed her trust. She was vulnerable in two ways, her illness and the fact she wasn’t awake. She was in her own bed, in her own house.
“Your sense of entitlement and your refusal to consider her consent, her illness and the fact she was asleep led directly to this offence.”
The judge added: “When she realised what had happened there were text messages and in a recording on her phone in August 2017 you made partial admissions and you apologised to her.”
Speaking after the case, Jade from Newcastle urged other victims to come forward. She said: “No one’s going to call you a liar. I will never get over this.
“But I feel like I’ve got my own justice, and a sense of vindication.”
