- John Ashby has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 14 years for raping a Sikh woman in a religiously aggravated attack.
- Ashby followed the victim off a bus into her West Midlands home, where he subjected her to a prolonged assault, including attempting to strangle her.
- During the attack, Ashby, 32, shouted racist and anti-Muslim abuse, telling the woman he was a 'British master' and making other religiously hostile remarks.
- Ashby, who was homeless and had been discharged from psychiatric care without a support package days before the attack, changed his pleas to guilty part-way through his trial.
- The Crown Prosecution Service highlighted that the deeply disturbing attack was driven by religious hatred, with the judge condemning Ashby's 'deeply unpleasant racist and Islamophobic' remarks.
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