Olympic swimmer jailed for 21 years for raping teenagers

A former Olympic swimmer has been jailed for 21 years for sexual offences, together with the rape of two teenage women below 18.

Antony James, 35, of Fort Terrace, Plymouth, was additionally found guilty in October of sexually touching one of many women and getting the opposite to ship him specific footage when each victims had been below the age of 16.

Plymouth Crown Court docket heard the offences happened between 2012 and 2022.

James represented Nice Britain on the 2012 Olympics in London and was coaching to be a police officer with Devon and Cornwall Police on the time of his arrest in January 2022.

The court docket heard he raped one women within the kitchen of her dwelling and the opposite in a automotive.

Studying out her sufferer impression assertion in court docket, one of many younger ladies mentioned: “I really feel as if my formative teenage years… have been stripped from me.

“I all the time surprise what sort of lady I’d have been if I hadn’t have met you.”

Decide Robert Linford dominated two-thirds of James’ sentence was to be served in custody earlier than being launched on licence.

He mentioned a sexual hurt prevention order could be made for a interval of 25 years and James could be positioned on the intercourse offenders register for all times.

James was discovered responsible of eight costs in October, together with three counts of rape, three counts of sexual exercise with a toddler and two counts of inflicting a toddler to have interaction in sexual exercise, the Crown Prosecution Service mentioned.

In April, he additionally admitted to 6 counts of constructing indecent images of a kid.

The decide mentioned the six counts of indecent photos “merely add to the story of abuse”, including: “Your quite nonchalant method to this catalogue of abuse was that it was all consensual.”

Addressing James about his first sufferer, the decide mentioned: “You knew what you had been doing was critically flawed however your want for that younger particular person overtook your self-control.

“She believed that you just two had been in a relationship.

“Evidently certainly what had been manufactured was a relationship, however then you definately betrayed that by raping her in her own residence.”

Senior Crown prosecutor Gemma Kneebone mentioned: “James was properly conscious of how younger these victims had been.

“He got down to benefit from this in a really appalling method, persevering with to offend towards them after they turned 16.”

Ms Kneebone mentioned the prosecution wouldn’t have been attainable with out the proof “so bravely supplied by the younger ladies concerned”.

James competed within the 100m butterfly for Nice Britain at London 2012 and received a silver medal for his nation on the Commonwealth Video games in 2010.