London man jailed for Tenby rape during lockdown trip

A London man has been jailed for eight and a half years after raping a woman he met in a pub during a family trip to Tenby in May 2021.

Nicholas Mitchell, 60, from Bromley in south London, had travelled to the Pembrokeshire seaside town with his daughters as Covid lockdown restrictions were being eased. After meeting his victim in a pub, he attacked her in a dark alleyway where he sexually assaulted her before raping her. He then walked off, leaving the woman in a “distressed and dishevelled state”.

Mitchell, of Park Avenue, West Wickham, was identified and arrested following a police report. He denied the allegations, but was convicted at trial in November of assault by penetration and two counts of rape.

⚖️ In a victim impact statement read to Swansea Crown Court by prosecution barrister Ian Wright, the woman said that following the attack she found it difficult to leave her house and felt isolated and lonely. She said she had “struggled to move forward” following the incident and felt “numb and depressed”. The woman added that the attack had “ruined so much” for her.

Defence barrister James Hartson said Mitchell maintained his innocence but accepted he was to be sentenced in accordance with the jury’s verdicts. He said personal and work references described a “kind, loyal, supportive and hard-working man”, and the offences in Tenby represented a “complete aberration”.

Mr Hartson also noted Mitchell had been charged by postal requisition some 37 months after his arrest, a delay he described as “particularly egregious” for both the defendant and victim.

Judge Huw Rees said Mitchell had “taken a fancy” to his victim when they met and subsequently carried out a “violent, callous assault” on a lone woman before walking off and “discarding her without a thought”. He told the defendant: “If drink got the better of you, so did your lust for sex with her” and described Mitchell’s actions as “wicked”.

🔒 Mitchell will serve two-thirds of his sentence in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community. He will be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life.

Mitchell has one previous conviction for assaulting a police constable in October 2020, an assault which occurred after police had been called to a domestic incident involving him and his estranged wife.