POLICE in Newport are investigating a suspected sexual assault on a 24-year-old woman.

The woman, from the Barracks Wood area, had gone in to town with her boyfriend and his friend on Friday evening, but left early after having too much to drink.

Detective Inspector Dave Edwards, of Newport Central police, said: "She requested that her boyfriend find her a taxi to take her home, and he took her to the taxi rank outside the Pizza Hut at about 11pm.

"A number of people were in front of her, but her boyfriend asked if she could get in the first taxi because of her condition.

"She remembers waiting for the taxi, but doesn't remember getting in. Her next recollection is at about 1am, when she came around in her own bed, attended to by paramedics.

"Her babysitter said she had turned up at about 12.30am with bruises on her arms and legs and she phoned the ambulance."

He added: "Her bruises are consistent with a sexual assault, but she didn't report it until Saturday evening and she can't remember what happened."

DI Edwards appealed for the taxi driver who drove the woman home, and anyone who saw her at the taxi rank and/or saw where she was dropped off in Barracks Wood, to come forward.

It is the third assault on a woman to be investigated by Newport police in the past week. A teenager was seriously sexually assaulted near the town centre between midnight and 1am on September 22.

And the following night, a woman was picked up in High Street and sexually assaulted between 12am and 12.30am.

It is not clear whether any of these incidents are linked.