This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A cricketer who raped a woman he found dozing in his teammate’s bedroom has been jailed for five years, with his victim calling it an evil and heinous attack that has left her suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.

Alex Hepburn carried out the rape in a dark bedroom during the first night of a sexual conquest “game” described as pathetic, sexist and foul by the sentencing judge.

The Australian-born former Worcestershire all-rounder is said to have been fired up by the contest to sleep with the most women before carrying out the rape in April 2017.

Jurors heard that the woman thought she was having sex with Hepburn’s then county team-mate Joe Clarke, a promising young England batsman, after meeting him at a nightclub. She realised she had been raped by Hepburn when he spoke in an Australian accent.

The woman left the flat and was discovered distressed and sobbing in the street by a passerby.

In her victim impact statement she described her ordeal as “evil” and a “heinous crime” and said her once “happy-go-lucky” character had disappeared.

She said: “I mourn who I used to be. I can’t remember the last time I went anywhere without creating mental escape plans, just in case.”

Describing the impact on her physical and emotional health, she now suffered panic attacks, anxiety, and “violent anger outbursts” and had struggled to hold down a steady job.

She also described having to move back in with her parents, and going for therapy to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The woman said that having to give evidence to a courtroom full of strangers while family members including her father had to sit and listen to every detail had been humiliating. “How can you focus on life when your whole life is turned upside down?” she added.

Jailing Hepburn at Hereford crown court on Tuesday, Judge Jim Tindal told him the conquest game was pathetic.

He said: “It emerged in the trial you and Joe Clarke had agreed a pathetic, sexist game to collect as many sexual encounters as possible. You probably thought it was laddish behaviour at the time. In truth it was foul sexism.

“It demeaned women and trivialised rape – a word you personally threw around lightly. Only now do you realise how serious rape is.”

The judge made it clear that on the night neither the woman nor Clarke had done anything wrong.

Addressing Hepburn, he said: “You thought you were God’s gift to women. You did see her at that moment as a piece of meat, not a woman entitled to respect. You scarred both your lives forever.”

A jury had found Hepburn guilty of oral rape at a retrial this month but cleared him of a further count of rape relating to the same victim.

The woman told jurors that she had consensual sex with the England Lions batsman Clarke, who then went into a bathroom, where he was sick and passed out.

WhatsApp exchanges suggesting Hepburn had had sex with 60 women during a previous “stat game” were not put before the jurors who convicted him.

Another message in which the all-rounder described himself and Clarke as a “pair of tens” who “should be banging models” was also ruled inadmissible during a pre-trial hearing.

Following the sentencing, DCI Ian Wall of West Mercia police said: “We welcome the sentence today and I hope it will offer some comfort to the victim, who has shown great courage and strength in coming forward in reporting this to us, throughout the investigation and in giving evidence in court.”

The case has once more put the spotlight on the behaviour of top cricketers. Last year the former England vice-captain Ben Stokes faced trial over a fight outside a Bristol nightclub. He was cleared of affray but he and his international team-mate Alex Hales admitted bringing the game into disrepute and were fined and given backdated bans by the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Hales found himself back in the spotlight this week after a 21-day ban for recreational drug use resulted in him being thrown out of the World Cup squad.

Worcestershire cricket club has said it was appalled by the details that emerged and took immediate and decisive action against Hepburn, who has left Worcestershire and was playing amateur cricket.