A Belfast man was jailed yesterday for three years for attempting to rape his former lover and the mother of their three year old daughter.
Sean Patrick Hamilton was also given lesser concurrent terms for assaulting the woman and threatening to kill her during the attack in February 1996.
A Crown lawyer had told the court the couple's stormy relationship had ended at Christmas 1995, and Hamilton had gone to London. Last February he returned to the woman's home where he tried to talk her into taking him back. During a final heated argument he stripped her and attempted to rape her.
Counsel said at one stage Hamilton had threatened to smother her with a pillow, telling her if he could not have her, nobody would.
Mr Justice Sheil said the mere fact that parties had been living together did not license a man to have sexual intercourse with the woman once that cohabitation was over.
"The girl always has the right to say No and the right at any time to say the relationship is over. Those rights must be respected by the man," he said.