Burglar jailed for nine years for knifepoint sex attack

Burglar Tyrone Ellis, 19, wore a mask fashioned from his victim's tights before tying her to a bed and repeatedly assaulting her.

Sentencing Ellis at Sheffield Crown Court, Recorder Nicholas Campbell told him: "It was a humiliating and terrifying ordeal that lasted two hours."

The 21-year-old victim is so traumatised she has not yet been able to tell her closest family of the nightmare assault.

She said in a statement read in court: "It disgusts me that I have experienced such low human behaviour from someone I have never met."

Ellis, of Longley, Sheffield appeared for sentence after being convicted by a jury of three offences of sexual assault and one of aggravated burglary after a nine-day trial.

The Sheffield student was due to graduate just a few days later when Ellis, just 18 at the time, burgled her terraced house in Sheffield when she was alone and asleep upstairs in her bed on July 17. He took two laptop computers while she slept before returning to carry out the sex attack.

Ellis, who has 30 previous convictions was ordered to serve nine years in a Young Offenders Institution.

He will serve half in custody before being released on licence.

After the hearing Det Con Gareth Rees, who led the inquiry said: "This incident was horrific but it is also important to remember that something like this is very rare."