Eight years for rapist who claimed to help girl

The girl had drunk a bottle of Ouzo and three quarters of a bottle of Lambrini on New Year's Eve 2008 and was staggering and collapsing by the time Ashley Burbeck took her down an alley.

She remembered nothing of the rape and by the time he took her back to the road she was in such a bad condition because of the drink she had taken he called an ambulance for her.

He then pretended that he had just been helping her after finding her collapsed in the road.

Burbeck, 20, of Mulberry Place, Ryhill, Wakefield, was found guilty by a jury last month of raping the girl.

Sentencing him at Leeds Crown Court yesterday Judge Kerry Macgill said: "This is a very serious offence. You took terrible advantage of that young girl that night."

It was estimated she had drunk 20-25 single shots of spirits in a short period of time at a house with another girl and because of that rapid consumption she had no memory of the incident after they went out.

"I'm satisfied you wanted to have sex with her and did not care whether she consented or not." The judge said the jury agreed she was in no fit state to consent.

Burbeck claimed in interview he had found the girl lying in the road and carried her to a safer place before calling 999.

He denied having sex with her and when confronted with DNA evidence then lied about the girl having approached him and asking for sex some days earlier.

"This was a complete fabrication by you," said Judge Macgill.

Burbeck was ordered to register as a sex offender for life and barred from approaching or contacting the victim in any way.