A 63-year-old man who held a female prisoner in his former home in Stowmarket and raped her a decade ago has failed in his bid to have a ban on him visiting Suffolk and Norfolk amended.

Trevor Robertson was jailed for 10 years in 2013 after being convicted by a jury at Ipswich Crown Court of falsely imprisoning the woman, making a threat to kill her and two offences of rape.

In 2017, following his release from prison, a judge varied a restraining order banning him from contacting the victim to include a ban on him visiting Suffolk.

That ban was varied in 2021 to allow Robertson to visit his elderly mother in Stowmarket on condition that he notified the public protection unit about the visits and was accompanied by someone from the unit.

On Thursday Robertson, who now lives in Devonshire Road, Laindon, returned to the court to apply to have the ban on him visiting Suffolk further amended because he claimed that there had been 22 occasions when he had made applications to the unit but hadn’t received a response in time.

Marc Brown, prosecuting, opposed the application and said the order was designed to allow the victim of the offences to get on with her life, without worrying about seeing the defendant.

Judge David Pugh refused to amend the restraining order and said in future he hoped the public protection unit would try to respond to the defendant’s requests to visit his mother more promptly.

During his trial, the court heard that Robertson, who now goes by the name of Rising, had lured the woman to his home at Combs, near Stowmarket, on the pretext of taking her to the theatre.

When she got there, he tied her hands to the posts of his bed and held a large hunting knife to her throat.

During her ordeal, Robertson threatened to kill her and also threatened to inject her with a syringe of clear liquid – which he claimed was a date-rape drug that would paralyse her if she did not co-operate.