Rapist jailed after past comes back to haunt him

Dec 19 2007

A RAPIST whose terrible crime came back to haunt him was behind bars last night - 13 years after the attack.

Ian McDowell, 41, of Brindley Road, Westvale, Kirkby, pretended to be a Good Samaritan when a woman’s partner failed to return to a Liverpool pub after they had a row.

But instead of helping her, McDowell carried out an attack on her that was so savage she thought she was going to die, Liverpool Crown Court was told.

Despite a big police investigation, McDowell evaded arrest and thought he had got away with his crime.

But, since the incident in June 1994, the police national DNA database has been established and there have also been huge advances in forensic technology.

Last year, as part of Operation Advance, investigating unsolved crimes, a forensic scientist took a swab taken from the rape victim out of the long term storage freezer at Chorley forensic science laboratory and compared the DNA against all the samples on the national database.

McDowell's DNA was on the database and it matched that from a sample found on the victim's swab, said Deborah Gould, prosecuting. The chance of it not being McDowell's DNA was about one in a billion.

Jailing McDowell for nine years and ordering him to sign on the Sex Offenders Register for life, Judge Mark Brown told him he had treated his victim in “an abominable way”.

The judge said that there was no such thing as a cold case and the development of scientific techniques and the establishment of the national database meant “your past came back to haunt you.”

“You chanced upon this vulnerable woman and it must have been clear to you that she needed a Good Samaritan to whom she could turn. I am satisfied that at an early stage you had it in mind to rape her,” said the judge.

“It must have been for her a truly terrifying and dreadful ordeal. She believed she might be killed. You punched her a number of times, you threw her to the ground and treated her as little more than an object through which to satisfy your sexual desires.

“She thought her time had come and desperate as she was she decided she had no alternative but to make a bid for freedom. Completely naked she ran through bushes onto the roadway and stopped a passing taxi driver.”

Judge Brown, who ordered McDowell, of Brindley Road, West Vale, Kirkby, to sign on the Sex Offenders’ Register for life, said that he had treated his victim in an “abominable way.”

The judge said that a letter of commendation should sent to the detectives in the case, Steve Kellett and Cathryn Thomas, by the chief constable.

Outside the court, the woman police officer broke the news of the verdict to the victim via her mobile phone and both women were in tears. Several women members of the jury had also been in tears during the sentencing.

McDowell denied rape and said he had consensual sex with the woman but claimed it had taken place in a different location.