Man jailed for 20 years for assaulting a woman in her home

Thursday, October 31, 2024 - A man who s3xually assaulted a woman in her own home before dragging her back to the property when she tried to escape, has been jailed for 20 years.

Benjamin Guiver, from Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, entered the property in Goodwick where the woman, was sleeping before violently attacking her.

Swansea Crown Court heard how the victim was mercilessly and repeatedly beaten in the attack on 24 May 2024.

Guiver admitted s3xual assault by penetration, assault, intentional strangulation, trespass with intent to commit a s3xual offence and threats to kill.

She attempted to flee her home barefoot while screaming "help me, help me" but the prowler grabbed her back by the hair and punched her.

Guiver sexually assaulted the woman in her own home before threatening: "I'm going to kill you".

The predator then began throttling the victim as he chillingly told her: "You're going blue, I'm going to kill you".

He has now been jailed for 20 years after he pleaded guilty to causing GBH with intent, trespass with intent to commit a sexual offence, assault by penetration, and intentional strangulation.

Swansea Crown Court heard the horror unfolded on May 24 this year while the victim waited for her partner to return home.

She woke up on the sofa to find the stranger kneeling beside her.

Guiver smashed the woman's head against a radiator and repeatedly punched her before sexually assaulting the woman.

The nightmare ordeal only ended when the fiend was interrupted by the woman's son.

Guiver escaped through a window but was chased down by the child, who said: "I didn't want him to get away after the state I saw my mother in."

The brute then also assaulted the woman's son by punching and choking him before police arrived.

It later emerged that he had also attempted to enter another house in close proximity to the victim’s home a short while earlier.

In a victim impact statement, the woman said the attack had "ruined my life" and left her a "shell" of a person she once was.

She added: "I genuinely thought I was going to die."

The woman described "choking" on her own blood while she was strangled and said she had "never experienced something so terrifying."

She was left severely bruised, bleeding and lost a fingernail and tooth in the savage attack.

The victim, who needed dental work, told the court she now struggles with her confidence.

She said she is also "frightened to be in my own home" without her long term partner.

The woman added: “I want so desperately to go back to some kind of normality with my life, however, I know that what has happened is going to continue to haunt me for the rest of my life.”

Guiver also pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and intentional strangulation in relation to the woman's son.

The court was told he was previously jailed for ABH in 2022 after kicking his ex-partner in the head.

Judge Geraint Walters described Guiver as a "violent and dangerous offender" and that nothing in his psychiatric report "begins to explain" what he did, or is connected to a "real" psychological illness.

He added: "It's hard for anybody to imagine a more brutal and terrifying attack within a person’s own home than the case presently before me.

"She was right to fear that you might kill her because you completely lost all reason and control."