A barrister who repeatedly shouted at a jury after he was convicted of raping a woman has been jailed for four years.
Robin Jacobs, 39, unexpectedly initiated anal sex during a consensual encounter and carried on the assault for up to 30 seconds after the woman screamed at him to stop, the Old Bailey heard.
The pair met online and had been on two dates before Jacobs raped her at his home following a third meeting in 2017, jurors were told.
Jacobs, a specialist education barrister who worked for London firm Sinclairslaw, said ‘it’s not funny, I shouldn’t laugh’ after his victim collapsed on the bed – which his counsel said was the result of his then-undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder.
The 39-year-old, from Woodford, east London, denied rape but was convicted on Thursday following a week-long retrial. He repeatedly yelled ‘I didn’t do it’ at the jury after the verdict was announced, before collapsing in the dock.
‘I was telling you the truth, I didn’t do it,’ Jacobs told the jury. ‘I could have lied but I told you the truth. I told you the truth.’
Stephen Rose, for Jacobs, described his client’s offending as ‘a momentary mistake’, saying: ‘This is not a defendant who will trouble the court again. He is struggling and I have no doubt will struggle to understand, principally for reasons associated with his disability, the outcome of this case.’
Judge John Hillen told Jacobs: ‘It gives the court no pleasure to sentence anyone to terms of imprisonment and in this particular case, with a man of good character, of exemplary character, a high standing in his profession, to have to sentence you as I must, and as you know I must, to a term of imprisonment is a sad event.’
The judge sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment and said that Jacobs’ belief that his victim would consent was ‘wholly unreasonable in the circumstances’.
‘In that mistaken belief, unreasonable as it was, in the course of a few seconds you have affected not only her life … but of course your own life with devastating effects,’ he added.
Jacobs’ profile page on Sinclairslaw’s website has been removed and the firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
