A Canberra man woke up in the middle of the night and drove to his future sister-in-law's house where he raped her in her sleep.
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The woman woke at about 3am on her stomach to find a man on top of her kissing her neck and believed it was her partner who worked at a nightclub.
She turned around, told the man "no babe stop" and grabbed his face. At that moment she felt facial hair, and realised it was not her partner. "Who the f--k are you?" she asked in shock.
The man left but not before she saw recognised him in the lighting of the courtyard.
In a decision published this week, the 28-year-old man, whose name is suppressed, was jailed in the ACT Supreme Court for five months.
He will be eligible for release in January on a good behaviour order for 19 months.
On the evening of March 2, 2018, the sister-in law had been at her step-mother's house for a family dinner. The man was staying there that night with his fiancee and children.
The sister-in-law returned home about 1am and went to sleep.
At about 3.15am the man woke up feeling the urge, he later told police. He said the woman was on his mind because she had earlier said "come over to my house, the kitchen door is open".
The invitation was to the family as a whole if they needed somewhere to sleep, the judgment notes.
He got into his car and drove to the victim's house, and went straight to her room when he arrived.
He sexually assaulted her in the bed, performing oral sex on her.
The former ACT gridiron player admitted that the woman was asleep for most of the assault and that when she started to wake up she did not know it was him.
When he left, she called her family and was physically sick.
The court heard he had broken up with his fiancee, the victim's sister, earlier this year. In a victim impact statement, the victim said she does not talk to her sister.
The man pleaded guilty to burglary, rape and an act of indecency.
The court accepted he was genuinely remorseful from the morning of the incident when he first spoke to police.
He received a discount for the pleas of guilty and also that he had admitted guilt on matters the woman was not aware of because she was asleep.
Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson sentenced the man to two years' jail, with five months behind bars.
He will be eligible for release in January.
