A concerned party guest who contacted a woman after a party helped her to bring the man who tried to rape her to justice.
Damola Olateju, 37, had targeted the woman when she and her friends went back to a flat after a night out in Warrington town centre, in December 2020. The carer filmed himself trying to have sex with the heavily drunk victim as she pleaded "no" and "get off me".
Olateju may have gotten away with the shocking attack had detectives not extracted the damning video from his mobile phone. Liverpool Crown Court heard the next day the woman found bruises and feared she had been raped, but was worried about coming forward because her memory was hazy.
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However a man who had been at the party, named in court as Mo, contacted her with concerns about what he saw in the run up to the incident, which gave her the confidence to call the police.
During an earlier trial, the jury were told Mo had been at the party with two friends and met the victim there. He said hello to her and noticed she seemed very drunk.
At one point Mo saw the victim go upstairs with the Olateju, who then came back down alone. Fiona McNeill, prosecuting, told the court when he said he "wasn't happy" and the woman "needed to be looked after", Olateju became threatening and even told him he would "slit his throat".
Mo and his friends left the flat, but Mo was concerned about the victim and in the following days contacted her on social media.
The court heard the victim had some memories of speaking to a woman in a bathroom and sitting on a couch, then being in a bed. Ms McNeill told the court: "She could tell there was someone else in the bed. She recalls that person, as she put it, was ‘mithering’ her and touching her.
"She remembers feeling cold and trying to cover herself with the quilt and saying that she was cold. She remembers saying ‘no’ and ‘I'm cold’. That is the last [the complainant] remembers from that night."
The court heard the woman woke in the morning alone in a bedroom, with her underwear missing but her boots still on, and went looking for her phone and bag. She realised as she searched for her phone that there was an empty condom wrapper in the room.
Ms McNeill said she found her phone and bag but the battery was dead, and she realised the door of the flat was locked. The victim shook Olateju awake and asked him to let her out, but initially he demanded to know where his phone was and wanted to search her bag.
Ms McNeill said: "The prosecution say we can only surmise the defendant was aware of what was on the phone and wanted to retain it."
The woman pointed out his phone after spotting it in the flat and was eventually able to leave and go home. The following night she realised she had bruises and injuries to her legs and buttocks, and began to fear she had been raped.
However it wasn't until Mo contacted her on Snapchat asking if she was ok, and expressing concerns about Olateju's behaviour, that she felt there was enough evidence to come forward.
Olateju was traced and arrested, and a deleted video file was recovered from his phone. Ms McNeill said: "The video showed evidence of what was said in the bedroom. "[The victim] can be heard saying 'no' and 'get off me' and that she is cold.
"The defendant can be seen trying to part her legs. He can be heard to say 'shut the f*** up' and then strikes her twice, in a slap to the face. She is heard saying 'ow'."
The court heard Olateju claimed he had engaged in consensual sex with the woman and had slapped her because he believed she enjoyed rough sex, but had given up trying to have sex with her on the last occasion and gone to another bedroom.
Olateju, of Padgate Lane in Warrington, was later charged with two counts of rape and one of attempted rape which he denied. He stool trial at Liverpool Crown Court, where a jury cleared him of the rapes but found him guilty of the attempted rape charge, which related to the events in the video.
Summing up a statement from the victim, Ms McNeill said she had been left with anxiety and feelings of hopelessness, and found it difficult to trust people.
Justin Hugheston-Roberts, defending, said his client was a father and also a carer for an autistic man, both of whom would suffer due to the inevitable prison sentence.
Mr Hugheston-Roberts said: "Today he has to pay the consequences. But there is a different side to this man other than the man who tried to force himself on a woman in the early hours of the morning."
Judge Stuart Driver, KC, passing sentence, said he was not persuaded that there was evidence Olateju had "plied" the defendant with alcohol, but said the video was an aggravating feature of the case.
Olateju, who appeared in court vid video-link from prison, hung his head as he was jailed for five years and ordered to sign the sex offender' register for life. The court heard he must serve at least two thirds of that sentence in custody before he can apply for parole.
You can report a sexual offence by calling 101 or via this link.
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