John Ashby is a man who did not hide his hatred of women - he rapped about it, uploaded it to YouTube, and then acted on it in the most horrific way imaginable.

This week, the 32-year-old was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 14 years for a racially motivated sex attack on a Sikh woman in her 20s. The court heard how Ashby barged into her home in October last year, mistakenly believing she was Muslim, before raping her while subjecting her to racist and misogynistic abuse - calling her a "fucking Muslim bitch," "dirty," and demanding she call him "the master."

Publicly available videos on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram show Ashby rapping about hitting women. "I'd fight any bitch, don't give a fuck. You cheeky bitch want to get slapped up, what?" he says in one. "Think I don't hit girls, oh please, you're a bitch and you're getting slapped down." In another, uploaded on 29 January 2024, he declares: "You think you're woman and I won't slap you in your face." He also describes himself as a "confident alpha male."

Inevitably, Ashby's hate-filled uploads include clips of him listening to manosphere-adjacent motivational messages from controversial influencer Andrew Tate, who can be heard saying: "The modern world was built by men" and "I'm the head of the clan."

During a police interview, Ashby answered "no comment" to all questions - except when shown a picture of the victim, he asked: "If she's a Muslim, why isn't she wearing a hijab?" In the custody suite, he complained: "You never see any Englishmen in Perry Barr any more."

Philip Bradley KC, prosecuting, said Ashby targeted the woman by telling her he was there "to have fun." He attempted to strangle her, punctuating the attack with racial and religious abuse. He demanded she climb into the bath and turn on the hot water, then asked which toothbrush was hers so he could clean his teeth. He then raped her. The ordeal continued in the bedroom, where he referred to his genitalia as "white" and "British" and forced her to repeat that he was a "master" and she was a "bitch." It ended only when Ashby heard a noise outside and fled, stealing her jewellery and mobile phone.

DNA and fingerprint evidence from the victim's toothbrush and vape matched Ashby, who was arrested two days later. The trial at Birmingham Crown Court was cut short when he unexpectedly pleaded guilty to all four counts on the second day after being confronted by a member of the public.

Sukhvinder Kaur, chair of Sikh Women's Aid - which said the case was unprecedented - described it as "hate-filled rape." She said: "He thought she was a Muslim woman and he hated Muslim women that much that he felt absolutely entitled to do what he did to her." She warned that the UK had taken a "very worrying turn" in its treatment of marginalised communities, with migrants being scapegoated "on a political level, on an online level and on a global level."

In the aftermath, women in Walsall told the Guardian they had changed their daily routines after a spate of religiously aggravated attacks on Sikhs. Kaur reported "abject terror in the local community." Shaista Gohir, chair of the Muslim Women's Network, called the case "horrific" and said it "exemplifies the ways in which religious hatred is often racialised." Her organisation urged the government to improve protections for minority ethnic women, citing the "cumulative impact of daily hostility, harmful rhetoric, and disinformation."