This is Hull and East Riding --A MAN cleared of raping a woman he met on the internet has been jailed for assaulting and stealing from her after a judge branded him one of the biggest liars he had ever come across.
Abattoir worker Max Billings, 33, was found not guilty of raping and sexually assaulting a woman at her home in the East Riding by a jury at Hull Crown Court yesterday.
Billings wiped tears from his eyes while his family sobbed in the public gallery as the "not guilty" verdicts were announced.
But he was left with a judge's harsh words ringing in his ears as he was sentenced to 18 months in jail for assault occasioning actual bodily harm, fraud, and stealing the woman's bank card, iPhone, car keys and car on August 31 last year.
In relation to those offences, Judge Michael Mettyear told him: "You are a liar through and through.
"I've been sitting for a long time and I find it difficult to remember somebody who has told so many lies through the course of your interviews and the evidence you have given."
Hull Crown Court heard the assault took place the previous night when Billings had grabbed the woman by the throat so forcefully she thought she was going to die.
Before he left the property, the woman, while looking for her mobile phone, had found and removed a bottle of white spirits Billings had taken from the garage and put in his holdall, which he had intended to use to burn the car.
He had told the court he could not explain how her iPhone came to be in his bedroom in Skellingthorpe, near Lincoln, or how the bank card had been placed within the phone under the back cover.
In relation to the theft, Judge Mettyear said: "You put what I regard as a wholly false allegation that you didn't know about the taking of the telephone until you were told the police had found it in your bedroom.
"It was rubbish. And the credit card in the back of it – only you could have done that."
The judge said it was "awful conduct" and "all part of a process" to cause maximum inconvenience to the woman. "I accept her account, I reject yours," he told Billings.
The judge called the grabbing of the throat, which the prosecution described as strangling, "very, very dangerous".
He described Billings's behaviour as "just gratuitous nastiness", and said, when taken together, it all showed a "very worrying side" to his personality.
He said: "Everything you did was wholly unjustified, cruel, mean, and designed to cause pain."
But Judge Mettyear said his comments were not intended to be at odds with the jury's verdict after they had cleared Billings of rape.
"I'm not being disloyal to the jury's verdict," he said.
"They can hardly have avoided coming to the conclusion that he was a gross liar and behaved disgracefully."
Billings was sentenced to 18 months for the assault, 12 months for the car theft, and six months for the other offences, all to run concurrently.
He was told he would be released on licence after serving half his sentence.
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