AN “immature” young farmer is starting a six-year prison sentence following his conviction for the rape and sexual assault of a woman.

Durham Crown Court was told that Karl Richard Gibson, then 19, committed the acts, despite the victim’s protests.

The court heard that Gibson protested his innocence on his arrest, last year, and throughout his trial, in late October.

Despite still maintaining he has been subject to a miscarriage of justice, the custodial term of five years was imposed for rape, with an added 12-months for one of two sexual assaults for which Gibson was also convicted, when he appeared back at the court, via video link from nearby Durham Prison, at today’s (Wednesday December 23) sentencing hearing.

David Brooke, prosecuting, read from the victim’s impact statement in which she said she was left feeling, “worthless”, and for some time since the incidents she has suffered anxiety attacks and had “flashbacks” to what took place.

Mr Brooke said the woman has since self-harmed and sought psychiatric treatment.

But Paul Reid, for Gibson, said the defendant and his family, “utterly reject” her comments in the statement.

Mr Reid claimed that to lay the blame for her psychiatric difficulties, “at the defendant’s door”, was, “completely unjustified”.

“He was 19 at the time, and is now 20.

“Were he a couple of years younger, it would be dealt with under far different sentencing guidelines.

“Although he’s now 20, he’s only a boy, and spends his time farming up on the fells with his cows.

“This is one of the most tragic cases I have been involved with, in quarter of a century doing sex cases.

“Following his conviction his family were in hysterics and couldn’t understand what was happening when he was taken to the cells in shackles, being searched, documented and taken off to Durham Prison.”

Mr Reid urged Recorder Tim Roberts to pass the least sentence possible, according to the guidelines.

But, Recorder Roberts said: “These offences were, indeed, borne out of immaturity, lack of thought, and inability to think things through in a considered manner.”

He made Gibson the subject of a ten-year restraining order, forbidding him trying to contact the woman.

Gibson, of Marshes Gill Farm, Harwood-in-Teesdale, County Durham, will also be subject to registration as a sex offender indefinitely.