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This article is more than 1 year old

An Australian cricketer has been found guilty of raping a sleeping woman as part of a “sexual conquest competition” he helped set up on a WhatsApp group.

Alex Hepburn, 23, was found guilty of oral rape but cleared of a further count of rape relating to the same victim after a four-day trial at Worcester crown court.

The court heard the woman wrongly thought she was having sex with Hepburn’s then county team-mate Joe Clarke at the players’ flat in Worcester.

She told jurors she had earlier had consensual sex with Clarke, an England Lions batsman, following a night out in April 2017. Jurors were told Clarke left his bedroom to be sick in a bathroom, where he passed out, leaving the woman asleep on a mattress in his room.

Hepburn told jurors he had drunk up to 20 bottles of beer before the woman rolled over in bed, kissed him, and instigated what he believed was consensual sex.

The victim, who cannot be identified, said she had her eyes closed and engaged in 20 minutes of sexual activity with Hepburn in a dimly lit bedroom, before realising who he was when he spoke.

The jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict following about 11 hours of deliberations. Jurors returned to court a few minutes later and cleared Hepburn of a second count of rape.

During his evidence on Wednesday this week, Hepburn admitted he sent “disgusting, horrible and embarrassing” messages via WhatsApp while setting the rules of a sexual conquest competition to have sex with as many new partners as possible.

Bailing Hepburn following the verdicts, the judge, Jim Tindal, told the cricketer, who was aged 21 at the time of the rape: “I am adjourning your case for the preparation of a pre-sentence report.

“It would not be a kindness to you to leave you under any false impression as to the purpose of that report. There is only one sentence that can properly be handed down in this case, and a custodial sentence is inevitable.”

The judge also said that his provisional view was that verdicts indicated that Hepburn’s belief in the woman’s consent had been unreasonable.

Hepburn will be sentenced at Hereford crown court on 30 April.