Barrister jailed for four years for raping woman he met on Tinder

Robin Jacobs shouted ‘I didn’t do it’ when the jury returned a guilty verdict
Robin Jacobs was found guilty of rape after an Old Bailey trial
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A barrister has been jailed for four years after raping a woman he met on a Tinder date.

Robin Jacobs, 39, told the woman to “hold steady” before unexpectedly initiating anal sex during their encounter in September 2017, the Old Bailey heard.

His trial revolved aroung the question of consent, with the victim insisting she did not know what he was planning and told Jacobs to stop, screaming “get out” before he moved away after 20 to 30 seconds.

When the jury returned a guilty verdict, Jacobs angrily shouted “I didn’t do it” from the dock, before collapsing in tears.

Judge John Hillen said Jacobs had taken “absolutely no steps” to establish the woman’s consent, telling him the incident was not just a “failure of courtesy, politeness and care” but a “criminal act”.

The barrister, from South Woodford, east London, met the woman through the Tinder dating app in 2017, and they went for drinks before going to Jacobs’ house.

They went on to exchange “sexually suggestive” messages in which the woman said she would like to try being tied up and they discussed the fantasy of a threesome, jurors heard.

But on their second meeting, they only had a cup of tea after Jacobs helped her to move some boxes into her car.

They went to Jacobs’ home again on September 17, 2017, for pizza and wine, and engaged in consensual sex.

The woman said during the sexual encounter, Jacobs said “wait a minute” before forcing himself on to her.

“I told him to stop twice and he did not. I screamed ‘get off’, then he stopped and he did move away,” she said.

“At that point I was just face down. I did not know what to do with myself, in quite a lot of pain.

“He told himself twice that it was not funny, he shouldn’t laugh. After the second time, he did laugh.”

She said Jacobs was “astonished” that she was upset and offered her paracetamol before she left.

“There was no discussion, absolutely no warning, there was no touching, foreplay, warning. There was nothing”, she added. “It was literally he made a decision and that’s what he did.”

In his evidence, Jacobs claimed he gave warning signs and told the woman to “hold steady” before engaging in anal sex.

“It would have been perfectly adequate when I had done it on previous occasions with other partners”, he said.

The court heard the barrister has autism spectrum disorder (ASD) which can lead to some people misreading social signals, but jurors were told the condition is not relevant to a person’s understanding of consent.

Jacobs said he had attempted anal sex with a woman without an advance verbal warning at least four times in the past, and he believed it happened “sort of incrementally”.

“Certainly I knew immediately there was a problem”, he added. “It’s like I say, nothing like that had ever happened to me before during sex. It was a shock.”

After being found guilty of rape at a re-trial, Jacobs shouted out to the jury: “I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it. I was telling you the truth. I could have lied but I told you the truth. Oh my God.”

His barrister, Stephen Rose, said Jacobs has an “inability to cope with a custodial environment”, and urged the judge to delay sentencing to consider an alternative to prison.

But Judge Hillen told him a jail term was inevitable.

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