A MAN has been found unanimously guilty of rape.

Ross Grant, from Trowbridge, was found guilty of one count of rape by a jury after deliberations that lasted just over four hours on Tuesday (August 16).

The woman was sleeping alone in the “security and comfort of her own home” last autumn thinking she was alone when she awoke to find the naked man on her bed, the court was told.

He then proceeded to rape her and said: “I’m going to have to take what I want.”

On the first day of his trial, prosecutor Charles Gabb said: “This is indeed a truly shocking way to wake a lady in the middle of the night.

“She was asleep in what she perceived to be the security and comfort of her own home, in her own bed.

“The shocking way she woke up, there was suddenly a man on her bed, he was naked.”

Mr Gabb said the complainant managed to “squirm free” and after shouting for him to get off, he soon left.

He left the house and went on the run for five months, before eventually being tracked down to Oxford, the court heard.

Grant, 48, told the court that they had consensual sex, but became “confused” under cross-examination from Mr Gabb.

The prosecutor said he had told “two totally different accounts” to his two different solicitors.

One of the discrepancies pointed out by Mr Gabb was that he told his first solicitor that the rape allegation “suddenly appeared”, and that people were threatening him in the street, which is why he went on the run.

But giving evidence from the witness box, he said that nobody said anything about this allegation to him.

Grant was accused of “trying to fit his story around the evidence”.

“Things have changed, I told one solicitor and I sacked them, I spoke to my other solicitors and most probably told them something different,” the defendant said. “After several months I’m going to say something different.”

“If you’re telling the truth, you’re not,” Mr Gabb said. “The truth is the truth.”

Grant was asked why he told two different stories. “I can’t answer your question,” he replied.

He was also accused of “trying to pull the emotional heartstrings” in his messages to his victim.

Grant will be sentenced at Swindon Crown Court next Wednesday (August 24).