THE young woman was on her back in long grass and asked the man if she could go home.
“Just one more hour,” the stranger in the grey hooded jumper replied.
The woman cried. She had already been held captive by Alan Simmons for almost an hour, repeatedly raped, beaten and taunted near the banks of the Macquarie River in Bathurst.
The woman had stayed late at work that afternoon in August 2015 to help her boss through a busy Saturday shift and walked home carrying a box of chocolates given to her in thanks.
In the early evening the woman walked near the ruins of an old gasworks and an empty lot opposite Police Paddock.
She didn't realise that Simmons was following her until he grabbed her from behind, put an arm around her neck and his other hand over her eyes.
“Come over here,” Simmons said, as he dragged the woman backwards to the river, choking her.
Over the next hour, Simmons climbed on top of the woman and repeatedly punched her in the face until she saw spots, squeezed her neck and used his teeth to pull out clumps of her hair.
Simmons, then 18, raped the woman over and over, and when she asked why, he whispered in her ear: “Because I'm raping you … because you like it”.
The NSW District Court released the agreed statement of facts last week , a month after Judge Jeffrey McLennan sentenced Simmons to 12 years’ jail, with a maximum term of 18 years.
In April, Simmons pleaded guilty to six counts of aggravated sexual assault causing actual bodily harm, and admitted a further two counts.
Soon after Simmons told the woman he would torture her for another hour that evening, he walked away and told her: “Don't move or I’ll kill you.”
The woman couldn't see Simmons in the dark, and he didn't respond when she called out, so she wrapped a scarf around her naked body and ran to the closest house for help.
She was taken to hospital, where doctors found 22 injuries all over her body.
DNA taken from the victim matched Simmons.
Police found Simmons' phone in the grass, and a muddy T-shirt hidden in one of his bedroom drawers.
A friend of Simmons told investigators the teenager had asked to borrow a torch to look for his phone that evening, saying he'd lost it in long grass and was “anxious and visibly distraught” while trying to find it.
Soon after he was arrested, Simmons asked a court for a non-publication order on his name, but Bathurst magistrate Michael Allen refused to grant it.
Mr Allen said it was vital the case was open, and it involved “gratuitous violence and serious sexual assault on an unsuspecting female victim”.
With time served, Simmons will be eligible for parole in 2027.
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