Man Sentenced After Drugging Four Men And Raping Three
A man named Sam Ashley is going to prison for drugging four men he met off Grindr and raping three of them.
30-year-old Ashley has just been sentenced to 23 years in prison after he went on a six-month long attack on men he met on Grindr back in 2016.
While each of the incidents was different, the court hearing revealed that Ashley told some of his victims that he had terminal colon cancer as a ruse to set up a meeting.
As for each incident, one of Ashley’s victims was drugged and raped twice by the insurance worker. This victim was a university student who had initially only agreed to meeting for a jogging session. That said, he later found out Ashley had other plans.
The second victim had agreed to a sexual encounter with Ashley, though in a threesome. When the two met up, Ashley gave the victim what he thought was paracetamol for a headache. Turns out, he was wrong.
The third victim was a man living with HIV. Ashley ended up drugging this man with GHB and then raping him. He then attempted to rape him two other times.
Lastly, the fourth victim was never raped. While he was drugged like the others, he ended up waking up before Ashley could rape him. He reportedly awoke to see “a number of sex toys on the bed.”
Ashley’s methods of drugging all these men changed per situation. One man’s tea cup was laced, another was given diazepam, and prosecutors say the HIV-positive man could have died due to the conflict between his medication and the GHB drug Ashley gave him.
Ashley’s defense team tried to explain his actions by saying he was triggered by many circumstances including the breakdown of his civil partnership, being bullied at work, dealing with anxiety, and past traumas from his childhood.
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William Mousley, Ashley’s attorney, added:
“The combination of those various factors and the stresses that they brought may well provide an explanation for why he had behaved in the way he did in that period of six months in 2016.
“We submit that those combination of factors are unlikely to recur in his life.”
“We submit that at the age of 30, while of course he will receive a lengthy term of imprisonment, he is someone who could be rehabilitated.”
That said, police, the prosecution, and the judge were not having it. James Stewart, the detective inspector at Hampshire police, said outside court:
“Samuel Ashley is a dangerous, calculating and manipulative individual who committed some of the most serious offences against multiple victims.”
“Today he has been jailed for a significant period of time and the community is a safer place.”
More: Gay Man Brutally Raped in Prison for Three Days As Guards Did Nothing
In addition, David Melville, who was the judge in charge of the case, told Ashley in court:
“You made every step which was needed, so far as you saw it, in your warped way of thinking in order to overcome their reluctance and allow you to get up close when their barriers were down.
“There’s a pattern of behavior here – it’s dangerous in my judgment.”
“There you are, just imagine, you found it possible to get those drugs, you used them when you wanted to on innocent victims, one of whom was already seriously ill.
“You took serious advantage of them and of course that was repeated on four occasions, all put into effect to make it easy for your by the use of the Grindr website, an easy way to meet those in the gay community.
“And of course if you met with reluctance you had a wheeze, a final one – you told them you were dying of cancer.”
“This was calculated behavior, it was deliberate and awful.”
While the judge considered giving Ashley a life sentence, he ultimately decided on 23 years of imprisonment. There are also reprecussion for after he is released for from. Sam Ashley has been banned from using Grindr and must inform police whenever/if ever he were to initiate a sexual relationship again.
h/t: PinkNews, The News
