A PERVERTED man obsessed with sexual violence has been jailed for attempting to rape a vulnerable 17-year-old girl at a Kendal property.

The court was given a harrowing account of the teenager’s ordeal at the hands of 23-year-old Stephen Hodgson, who admitted attempted rape and assault causing actual bodily harm. A few hours before he attacked the girl, he was searching online for rape videos.

Carlisle Crown Court court was told how a neighbour heard her ‘howling’ in distress and intervened, arriving in the property to find the defendant attempting to overpower his blood-covered victim.

Hodgson, formerly of Herdus Road, Whitehaven, was jailed for eight years.

Richard Haworth, prosecuting, said the defendant travelled with a pal from Workington to Kendal on December 27 last year after speaking to the teenager and one of her friends online. Just released from prison, he wanted to have sex with somebody.

Hodgson had used cannabis and had been drinking alcohol.

Mr Haworth described how when he was left alone with the teenager at her Kendal home Hodgson began punching her - so forcefully that she lost consciousness. The barrister spoke of the ferocity of the attack, describing it as ‘extreme violence’.

Hodgson’s defence barrister Anthony Parkinson said: “The defendant started misusing alcohol from the age of 12 or 13 and controlled drugs a couple of years after that. He was also exposed to violent behaviour in his household.”

In her impact statement the traumatised girl said: “Almost every moment, I think about what happened to me. I feel anxious and depressed and I struggle to focus due to what happened.” She is haunted by flashbacks - the memory of Hodgson’s face.

“It makes me feel terrified," she said.

Judge Nicholas Barker told the defendant: “You had an interest in violent and disturbed sexual experiences; it was something of an obsession of yours; something you were fixated on.”

As well as the eight-year jail term, the defendant will be at risk of recall to prison for a total of 13 years. He will be on the sex offenders register for life.