A RAPIST who subjected a woman to a humiliating ordeal in her own home has been jailed for 12 years.

Rickie Carter brandished a meat cleaver, told the woman to strip, and then laughed at her and said she was fat before he forced her to have sex with him on a sofa, Worcester Crown Court heard.

The 37-year-old of Foxlydiate Crescent, Redditch, was found guilty by a jury but had refused to co-operate with the probation service because he still believed in his innocence, Abigail Nixon, defending, told a sentencing hearing.

"He says it is the end of his life," she said.

"He now has a conviction for rape and the stigma that goes with it."

She said he had made several serious suicide attempts since the verdict.

Carter claimed the woman had sent him provocative text messages and invited him to her home in October last year but the prosecution said she had been surprised to see him at her door at about 8pm.

Judge Abbas Mithani, QC, said it had been the start of a "degrading and humiliating ordeal."

Carter took a meat cleaver and put it on the table.

"You wanted her to know that you were prepared to use it if she didn't do exactly what you asked of her," the judge said to him.

"She was petrified."

The young mother, whose children were asleep upstairs, made him a pizza but he said it was disgusting and threw the piping hot food in her face before telling her to clear up the mess, the judge said.

He struck her on the leg with the blunt edge of a knife and hit her with a toy dinosaur.

He said he could control her and when she made coffee, he said she was lucky he had not thrown the boiling water over her.

The judge said there would be long-lasting psychological effects from the ordeal.

Carter, who had 10 previous convictions, was given 12 years for rape, with two years six months for assault causing actual bodily harm to run concurrently.

As he was taken to the cells, he shouted out "I will do this sentence like the innocent man that I am."