A NEWPORT student was found guilty of imprisoning a young woman in his car and assaulting her.

Vibinmon Joseph, 25, held the woman inside a locked car which he parked in a supermarket car park in St Albans, Hertfordshire.

He was also found guilty of common assault on the 26-year-old woman, an Indian student living in Luton, on an earlier occasion.

Joseph, a student at the University of Wales, Newport, was cleared at St Albans Crown Court of raping the woman in his car as well as four charges of sexually assaulting her. He was cleared of kidnapping her and a second charge of common assault.

The jury was discharged from bringing in a verdict on a count alleging assault by penetration and the prosecution will seek a retrial on that charge.

Joseph, of Commercial Road, was remanded in custody. He will not be sentenced until the outcome of the newtrial is known.

The woman told the jury that before raping her he had forced her to go through a bizarre wedding ceremony in his car, which was parked in Stockwood Park in Luton.

She said he placed a chain around her neck, telling her it made her his wife.

Joseph told the jury she tied him up and became upset when he wouldn’t have sex with her.

He said they planned to marry in their native India next year and he wasn’t going to have full sex with her until their wedding Joseph met the woman while working for a foreign student placement agency, when he had the job of meeting her on arrival at Heathrow Airport and taking her to accommodation in Luton.