A MANCHESTER University student has told how her life has been destroyed by a terrifying rape attack in her bedroom.

The 21-year-old said she has abandoned her studies and was now living `like a toddler' at home, sleeping in the same bed as her mother because she is too frightened to sleep alone.

She was describing the impact of the rape in a dramatic statement read to Manchester Crown Court as her attacker, Anthony Pryde, was jailed for life yesterday.

The court heard that Pryde, 23, gatecrashed a student party in October last year and attacked the girl, then 20, in her bedroom after he found her asleep at 4.30am.

During a 20-minute ordeal he ordered her to strip and then grabbed her around the neck so hard she felt her bones `crunching'.

The attack ended when other students at the party heard her screams and smashed open her bedroom door.

In her statement to the court, the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: "It's affected me in a million ways. All my friends are at university so I'm just stuck at home. I've gone from the student life I had, being surrounded by so many people and doing stuff every day and night and having so much fun.

"It's like being a toddler again. I have to sleep with my mum because I'm frightened. I'm frightened to fall asleep because of what happened and I have to sleep with a light on.

"When I eventually do fall asleep I have the worst nightmares. They're horrible, vivid nightmares that wake me up." The victim, who was not in court to see Pryde sentenced, said she is now frightened when anyone approaches her in a public place.

Paranoid

She said: "I'm paranoid, I'm always so on guard and I'm wary of everybody at all times.

"I have the worst panic attacks. Just the smallest things and I can't breathe. It hurts me, it pains me. It seems so silly that just one night, just one little thing, has killed everything."

Pryde saw the party, where around 70 revellers were celebrating a birthday in a student house, and decided to go in uninvited. No-one at the party knew him but he mingled with partygoers, telling them he was a DJ named `Ice Cold'. He went into his victim's bedroom as he walked around the house asking if anyone had any cannabis.

Kevin Donnelly, prosecuting, said she woke up to find him stroking her leg and when she jumped out of bed he knocked her to the floor.

The girl screamed and bit his finger but Pryde continued with the attack, ordering her to strip naked before he raped her.

When party guests finally heard her screams, they smashed down the door and the girl fled naked out of the room and on to the roof of the house, preparing to jump to ensure she escaped him.

Pryde calmly pocketed his victim's mobile phone and left the party. He was arrested later at his home in Grosvenor Road, Whalley Range.

Pryde pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to rape. He was jailed for life by Judge Anthony Gee, who described him as a `danger to women'.

The judge ordered that he must serve at least three years 150 days before he can be considered for parole.

He was also ordered to sign the Sex Offenders' register.

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