Soldier who raped stranger in ‘harrowing’ street attack jailed for nine years
A soldier who tried to hide in a railway station cubicle after raping a stranger in a doorway in a ‘harrowing’ attack has been jailed for nine years.
Private John Harvey, 25, initially gave police a full confession after accosting and attacking the young woman as she walked through Shrewsbury town centre.
But he then forced her to ‘relive the worst moment of my life’ by pleading not guilty and making her give evidence at his nine-day trial.
In a victim impact statement read at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court, the woman, who cannot be identified, said her 20-minute ordeal had left her with post-traumatic disorder.
She said: ‘My home has become the only place I feel calm. The offender has convinced me terrible people who can do terrible things are everywhere.
‘I was forced to endure rape. The offender also forced me to fight my corner in a trial. I was forced by him to relive the worst moment of my life repeatedly.
‘This event from the beginning to the end is the worst and hardest thing I have ever had to endure.’
Harvey, of Clive Barracks in Tern Hill, near Market Drayton, Shropshire, was found guilty of two counts of rape and one of assault by penetration.
Judge Richard McConaghy told him the offence was aggravated by the fact he was drunk and the ‘vulnerable’ woman was walking alone at night.
He told Harvey: ‘She walked away and rang 999, audio of that call in the state that she was in is harrowing to listen to.’
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The court heard Harvey, who had missed his last train, went back towards the woman after the sexual assaults, but was ‘put off’ as she was on the phone to police, and went instead to Shrewsbury railway station.
Video released by West Mercia Police after Harvey was jailed showed him being arrested by officers at the station at 6.32am in July last year.
The video clip shows officers ordering Harvey to open the cubicle and then handcuffing him before he provided his name.
Harvey, who was also ordered to serve an extended three-year period on licence after his eventual release, was said by the judge to be an ‘educated man with a degree’ and to have had a ‘respectable career’ at the time of the attack.
The judge told Harvey, who is now working as a prison cleaner and training as a mentor: ‘You co-operated on arrest and made full admissions to having raped her.
‘You however chose to throw that mitigation away by contesting the trial in the face of very strong evidence and made her give evidence despite your own confession of what you had done.’
After the sentencing, Detective Constable Sam Jones said Harvey ‘is a danger to the wider public, in particular, women’.
The officer added: ‘In July last year Harvey committed a purely evil crime, and despite admitting to the offences during a police interview when he was arrested, he then changed his story at court, subjecting his victim and her loved ones to sit through a trial and relive that awful night.’
No details of Harvey’s military service or his employment by the Army were disclosed at his sentencing hearing.
Clive Barracks is the long-term home of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment.
In a statement which did not confirm details of Harvey’s unit, an Army spokesperson said: ‘We can confirm that Private John Harvey appeared for sentencing at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court on June 5, 2025, convicted of a sexual offence. He was sentenced to nine years imprisonment.’
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