A Ballarat man found guilty of raping a 17-year-old girl while he was on an alcohol-fuelled bender at a Redan house last year has been sentenced to jail.
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Derek Emerson, 29, was sentenced earlier in August to five years and six months in jail. He must serve four years before being eligible for parole.
The father-of-one was placed on the Sex Offender Registry for 15 years.
A County Court jury found Emerson guilty of three counts of rape and one count of sexual assault in June.
During the Ballarat trial, Emerson claimed he had consensual sex with the teenager, but could not remember the incident because he had drunk two bottles of vodka.
His defence counsel said Emerson had been falsely accused of raping the girl evident by his unprompted remark, “we had sex and she was fine”.
“(They are) hardly the words of someone committing a rape,” defence barrister Paul Stefanovic said.
He urged the jury to consider the biomechanics of the penetration.
The prosecution alleged at one point, Emerson restrained the girl on a bed they were sharing with two other people and raped her.
The teenager told Emerson a number of times to stop but he ignored her protests.
Earlier in the night, the teenager called a taxi to get away from Emerson who tried to cuddle her while she was getting ready for bed.
But the taxi driver refused to take her to her friend’s house because she could not pre-pay the fare.
The teenager eventually allowed Emerson and his friend to stay in her bedroom with her housemate.
Emerson first raped the teenager on an air mattress they were sharing before it deflated.
She then started to go to sleep on the bed next to her housemate when Emerson and his friend got into the bed.
The teenager was raped again, the jury were told.
The jury of five men and seven women took two days to reach their verdict in the 10-day trial.
Emerson, who was supported by a friend, showed no emotion while the verdict was said in court.
Judge Howard Mason thanked the jury on behalf of the community, telling them they had shown concentration during the trial.
He sentenced Emerson at the Victorian County Court in Melbourne on August 3.
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