A MAN who knocked out a woman in her own house before stealing her phone and purse has been jailed.

Wesley Walker, 38, didn’t know the victim before they encountered each other in a pub, York Crown Court heard.

She told the court she first remembered being aware of him when they were in her York kitchen and saw that he had her keys.

When she tried to get them, he punched her twice so hard she fell unconscious to the floor and he stole her phone and purse.

She said she had been drinking after attending a funeral and wake earlier that day.

Matthew Collins, prosecuting, said Walker had previously served a three-year sentence for trying to rape another woman.

The funeral guest had to give evidence because Walker claimed she had attacked him and he had only pushed her.

Judge Simon Hickey told Walker after hearing from both: “She wasn’t the aggressor, you were” and “You have been violent to women in the past with a very different offence.”

In a victim personal statement, the first woman wrote she had been so affected by his actions, she found it difficult to be in her home, especially in the kitchen.

“I feel my house should be a safe place where I feel safe and protected,” she wrote. “But I won’t let this man beat me.”

Walker, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to theft, causing actual bodily harm and breaching the sex offenders’ register by failing to tell police where he was.

He was jailed for 13 months.

Walker delayed the hearing for months by claims that he was ill. Doctors disagreed.

His barrister Glenn Parsons said: “He would say he is in the last months of life from cancer. He believes his body is riddled by cancer and he is close to death.”

The judge told Walker: “You are simply a fantasist.”

The woman said she couldn’t remember getting into a taxi and going home.

Walker said he had been desperate for money and regretted stealing from her.