Man pleads guilty to religiously aggravated rape of Sikh woman after 'thinking she was Muslim'

Man pleads guilty to religiously aggravated rape of Sikh woman after 'thinking she was Muslim'John Ashby, 32, pleaded guilty at Birmingham Crown Court to the religiously aggravated rape and assault of a Sikh womanNewsBenedict Tetzlaff-Deas News Reporter15:02, 21 Apr 2026Updated 15:26, 21 Apr 2026View ImageBirmingham Crown Court(Image: BPM Media)A man has admitted raping a Sikh woman after breaking into her home and calling her a 'Muslim b***h'.John Ashby, 32, pleaded guilty at Birmingham Crown Court today to the religiously aggravated rape and assault of a Sikh woman. He initially denied the attack, but changed his plea one day into the trial.Prosecutors had alleged Ashby, of no fixed abode, attacked the victim in Walsall in October after following her off a bus and entering her home while she was upstairs.The prosecutor told the jury of six men and six women: “Despite her screams, he told her to take her clothes off, he struck her with the stick, and he put his hands around her neck to strangle her and demanded that she climb into the bathtub.“Throughout the attack he racially and religiously abused her,” the prosecutor said.Ashby, the court heard, is alleged to have asked the woman which toothbrush was hers because he wanted to clean his teeth, before exposing himself and performing a sex act on himself.Mr Bradley added: “He turned on the hot water tap and began pouring water over her, telling her to say ‘hallelujah’ as he did so.”Body-worn police footage showing the victim was played to a jury of six men and six women on Tuesday, during which she was comforted by a female officer and said her attacker had called her a “bloody Muslim b***h”.The woman, said by witnesses to have been hysterical while repeatedly screaming, told police she had been raped in a bathroom by the intruder, who was armed with a piece of wood.In a video interview played to the court, the complainant told police: “He had a stick in his hand. I said ‘who are you’ and I star...