A YORK rapist who put a young mother through a terrifying and degrading ordeal in an unlit alleyway has been jailed for eight-and-a-half years.

Michael Peter Cook, 36, persisted with the lengthy night attack off Queen Anne's Road on July 19 despite shouts from a witness to stop and the woman's screams and sobs, prosecutor Alan Mitcheson told York Crown Court.

Cook gagged his victim and said "If you don't stop screaming I will kill you", before dragging her into the dark alleyway and raping her. But the eyewitness alerted police and they caught Cook with his trousers half open.

Since the rape, the woman, who is in her twenties, has lost a stone and a half, cannot bear to touch her boyfriend and has difficulty caring for her children. She fears she may have contracted a sexual disease, but is too traumatised to get medical help, Mr Mitcheson said.

"I rate this as one of the most serious cases of rape that I have come across," said Detective Sergeant Bryan Redshaw. "The impact on this victim has been quite devastating. She is quite clearly going to have to live with this for the rest of her life."

He praised the actions of the eyewitness, who is to get a £300 reward.

Cook, of Acomb Road, York, pleaded guilty to rape. He was put on the sex offenders' register for life.

The Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman, said: "This was a violent, prolonged and degrading rape."

Cook had followed the woman from near Lendal Bridge.

Cook's barrister, Paul Williams, said he was a binge drinker who had had drunk 12 or 13 bottles of lager that evening. When he saw the woman "something clicked inside him".

Cook had taken out his anger at his own abuse as a child on the York mother. Mr Mitcheson said Cook had been sitting alone near the Moat House Hotel on the river bank in the early hours when he saw the woman, who was going to her boyfriend's home.

As she crossed Marygate car park, she heard someone running behind her. Cook grabbed her and punched her four or five times in the face. She thought he was after her handbag, but he replied: "I don't want your bag, I want you."

Updated: 09:05 Saturday, October 02, 2004