A sex offender who attacked, terrorised and groped a young man in his home has been jailed for more than two years.
The innocent victim could not answer his own door at times since his violent and terrifying ordeal at the hands of Patrick Price.
Price, 38, threatened to stab him, pinned him to the ground and molested him in his living room, Teesside Crown Court heard today.
Price - who has convictions for indecency against a young boy and a knife slashing - befriended the 21-year-old man while using a different surname.
He was invited into the man’s home - but reacted violently when the man told him he was not gay.
Price had turned the conversation sexual as he asked whether the younger man had “slept with a bloke” before.
The man felt uncomfortable and replied he was not that way inclined and he was a father.
Price’s response was to elbow the man to the left side of his face, injuring his left eye.
Prosecutor Paul Cleasby described the “disturbing attack” which badly affected the young man on September 12 last year.
Price pushed his elbow into the victim’s chest, forcing him to the floor under his body weight.
He told him not to struggle, saying: “Don’t. Stay still or I’ll stab you.”
The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, believed the threat to be genuine as he thought he had seen a knife in Price’s pocket.
Price pinned him down and sexually assaulted him, the court was told.
He calmly walked out of the house after the frightened victim shouted at him to leave and pushed him away.
The injured, distressed man texted a friend saying he could not believe what had happened to him.
His friend called the police and turned Price away from the home when he tried to approach again.
In a victim personal statement read out in court, the young man said: “This incident has changed me.
“I live alone in my home. Each time I get a knock at the door I panic.
“I will not go to the door until I look out of the window from behind the curtains to see who it is.
“I don’t always feel able to answer the door and sometimes I don’t answer it.
“I don’t feel able to trust anyone at the moment. I feel it’s hard to let anyone, especially males, into my home.”
Price initially claimed it was a consensual sexual encounter, but changed his story when the victim’s injuries were put to him.
Price, of Tarring Street, central Stockton, pleaded guilty to sexual assault.
He had a conviction and one-year prison sentence for gross indecency against a nine-year-old boy 14 years ago.
He received a probation order for inflicting grievous bodily harm by slashing someone with a knife in 1996, as well as a conviction for intimidation.
Lewis Kerr, defending, said Price’s lack of openness made it difficult to know his motives beyond sexual desire.
He asked the judge to consider a non-custodial sentence to deal with Price’s “massive difficulty with reasoning in relation to sexual desires”, but the Probation Service rejected the idea of managing him in the community.
Mr Kerr said Price planned to move away from the area and was supported by his partner.
Judge Howard Crowson told the defendant: “This offence was both violent and distressing.
“He made things very clear. You didn’t take refusal well so you assaulted him.
“You reacted in a violent way and forced yourself upon him.
“He was clearly very upset by the whole incident.”
He jailed Price for two years and four months and gave him an indefinite restraining order banning him from contacting the victim or entering his street.
Price will be on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years - for the second time in his life - and may face a ban from working with children.
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