Rapist locked woman in Seven Kings home and choked her with fairy lights

A rapist who imprisoned a woman in her Seven Kings home and choked her with a string of fairy lights has been jailed for 10 years.

Hernany Ernesto De-Brito, 22, throttled her with lights wrenched from her Christmas tree until her eyes became bloodshot.

De-Brito also beat her during the horrific sex attack, leaving the woman with serious injuries.

He had visited her home with two other friends and when they left, he took her keys and locked her in.

The woman was unable to escape until around 6am the next morning, when he fell asleep and she used a set of spare keys to flee the house.

During the ordeal she was bitten and raped three times.

He was convicted of three counts of rape, choking with intent to commit rape, false imprisonment, assault by penetration and causing grievous bodily harm with intent by a jury after just five hours deliberation at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Monday.

Judge Louise Kamill told him: “The rapes are three-fold and took place in three different ways over a period of a false imprisonment which lasted about two hours in the victim’s own home.

“The woman continues to suffer panic attacks and requires a companion in her flat for fear of shadows according to her impact statement.

“It is obvious that the nature and brutality of your offending show you will remain a high risk to the public in future.”

De Brito will also have to serve 40 weeks consecutively to his sentence for being drunk and disorderly on a previous occasion. The victim was treated for bleeding between the brain and the skull after the ordeal.

De-Brito, of no fixed address, was ordered to sign on to the sex offenders register for the rest of his life.