A TV licensing inspector who raped a pregnant woman after she took pity on him when his car broke down in freezing conditions was jailed for six years today.

Gary Catterick, 49, forced himself on his victim in the front room of her Middlesbrough home after she asked if he would like a coffee last November.

The jury at Teesside Crown Court disbelieved his story that sex between them while he waited for the AA to come and fix his Renault Megane was consensual.

He sobbed as the foreman of the panel of eight men and four women returned a unanimous guilty verdict after deliberating for one hour 40 minutes.

Judge John Walford, sentencing, told the father-of-two: "You cruelly and self-indulgently repaid the kindness and consideration of this young woman by raping her.

"She was young and vulnerable, she was a victim in her own home."

Judge Walford, who ordered Catterick to be on the Sex Offenders Register for life and sentenced him to six years, said the sentence "took into account the obvious effect of your actions on your victim".

The court heard she vomited throughout the evening after the police were called to her home.

Catterick, of Broadwell Road, Middlesbrough, wept as he was led away, yelling: "I didn't do it Your Honour."