A TEENAGER who raped a paralysed woman while he was high on cocaine was ordered yesterday to be detained for seven years.

Adrian Thwaites, 17, had smashed his way into the 43-year-old stroke victim's home at 2am and raped her. Police found the woman, who later told them she thought she was going to be murdered, covered in his blood and crawling around the floor.

Thwaites cut himself breaking a window and DNA tests linked the blood to him and his twin, who had an alibi.

Judge Michael Taylor described the case as horrendous.

Simon Reevell, prosecuting, said the woman had gone to bed in the early hours of July 11 and was awakened soon after by tapping on the ground floor window.

Then she heard the sound of breaking glass and was confronted by the intruder, who ordered her to lie on the floor, where he raped her, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Tim Roberts, defending, said that the two main points of mitigation were Thwaites's guilty plea at the earliest opportunity and his age.

Thwaites, of Fawcus Street, Dormanstown, near Middlesbrough, was sentenced to seven years' detention, including his transfer to an adult prison at 21.

Judge Taylor, who also ordered him to register as a sex offender for life, told him: "It was an horrendous rape carried out in the most unpleasant of circumstances."