A wheelchair-using convicted rapist has been sentenced to a year in prison for attacking a woman to the danger of her life.

Robert Warman, 46, beat up the 27-year-old in Aberdeen in October last year, six weeks after meeting her in a gay bar in the city.

The woman, who cannot be named, struck up a friendship with the ex-Royal Marine, not knowing that he had spent eight years in jail for raping a 16-year-old girl.

Warman had been charged with attacking the woman with the intent to rape her, but was found guilty of a lesser charge of assault to the danger of life following a week-long trial. The sentence was backdated to October because he has been held on remand since the offence.

His victim said she was terrified, adding: "He's an animal and I can't believe they have let him out."

The pair had struck up a "platonic" friendship, and the pair had gone out to the cinema and for drinks.

They had arranged to go out for drinks for her birthday, she told the court, but she "stormed off".

She said: "He made gestures towards me that made it look like it wasn't platonic, and something else went on in the bar. Another man approached me, a very gay man, and said he had relations with Mr Warman and he was dangerous and to stay away from him. I was disgusted."

The woman said Warman followed her to a taxi rank in his electric wheelchair, but she went home alone. Forty minutes later he burst into her first-floor flat.

She said she had previously helped him up stairs with his walking sticks, but he had stormed in "very easily", before repeatedly punching her on October 26.

She escaped and went to a neighbour for help.