Gary Conibear, the Tidworth Rapist, has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison after being convicted of rape.
After a trial at Winchester Crown Court in July, Gary Conibear, 33, from Tidworth, was convicted of raping a lady after a night out.
The court was informed that Gary Conibear encountered a woman on a social outing with friends in Tidworth in June 2022, when they engaged in playing pool and consuming beverages together.
Gary Conibear thereafter proposed to escort her home, and they both dozed off, fully attired, on her bed.
She subsequently regained consciousness to discover him assaulting her sexually.
On Monday (06/10), Judge Rufus Taylor sentenced Gary Conibear to 90 months of imprisonment and instituted an indefinite restraining order prohibiting any direct or indirect contact with the survivor.
In a powerful and moving personal statement, read to the court, the survivor said: “No words will ever truly capture how these last three years have broken, changed, and reshaped me. But I will try, because I need you to understand what was taken from me, what I’ve survived, and what I still carry every single day.
“When this happened to me, I didn’t just feel hurt; I felt ashamed. I blamed myself. I asked over and over, What did I do wrong? Why me? What haunts me the most is how he did it without a flicker of remorse.
“The assault didn’t just happen in a moment. It echoed. It infected every part of my life.
I stopped leaving my house. For 18 months, I was locked away from the world, gripped by fear, shame, and agoraphobia. I stopped seeing my friends. I stopped seeing my family. I stopped seeing myself.
“I was exhausted by the weight of what had been done to me. I was living in a constant loop of fear, shame, and despair.
“There is no justice that can erase what happened. There is no sentence long enough that can give me back the years I’ve lost, the nights I’ve cried, the peace that was stolen from me.
“But I’m here. I am still standing, scarred, yes, but not silenced.
“All I ask is this: please see the pain. Please feel the weight of what I’ve been through. Because I carry it every single day in my mind, in my body, and in the way I now live my life.”
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