RAPIST ALAN BLACKWELL APPROACHING RELEASE DESPITE PAST CRIMES
A rapist who dressed-up in women's clothes to attack teenage girls is set for prison release.A Parole Board panel has directed that sex predator Alan Blackwell should be released, despite hearing chilling details about his behaviour and attitudes to violence and sex.
Blackwell was jailed for life in 2004 after being convicted of three horrific sex crimes carried out years apart against young victims.
He got away with two attacks for years before detectives were able to link him to the horrific crimes through DNA.
Blackwell has previously applied for parole five times since his minimum jail term came to an end in March 2014, with each bid for freedom being kicked out after the Parole bosses heard risk factors about him potentiall offending.
However, at a hearing earlier this month panel members agreed to direct that he should be freed.
The board's decision is eligible for reconsideration by the Justice Secretary and Blackwell will remain in prison for 21 days from the hearing, on June 3, during which the Secretary of State can apply for reconsideration.
A Parole Board spokesman said: "We can confirm that a panel of the Parole Board has directed the release of Alan Blackwell following an oral hearing.
Parole Board decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community.
A panel will carefully examine a huge range of evidence, including details of the original crime, and any evidence of behaviour change, as well as explore the harm done and impact the crime has had on the victims.
"Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care.
Protecting the public is our number one priority." In 1994 Blackwell subjected a 19-year-old woman to a terrifying ordeal when he targeted her in South Shields.
The victim was walking home along John Reid Road when she suddenly felt someone grab her from behind, reports Chronicle Live.
She was dragged down an embankment by the man, who then started ripping her clothes off.
Blackwell attempted to rape the woman before leaving the scene.
She made her way to a nearby phone box where a taxi driver found her sobbing and took her home to her mum's house.
The woman contacted police, and a manhunt was launched for her attacker.
Blackwell appeared to have got away with this horrendous crime until he was arrested for another attack several years later.
The monster was jailed for 14 years for raping a schoolgirl in a secret lair he had built in undergrowth in Washington.
Blackwell bound and gagged the 12-year-old and wore women's clothes during the nightmare attack in 1997.
And when officers from Northumbria Police's Operation Phoenix cold case team looked again at the attack in South Shields they were able to use advances in DNA testing techniques to link Blackwell to the crime.
Blackwell, then 48, and formerly of Sandiacres, Hedworth, Jarrow, was jailed for life with a minimum of nine years and 10 months, in 2004.
Then two years later he was back in court after being linked to the rape of a 15-year-old girl in July 1989.
She was attacked as she camped with two friends on grassland in Jarrow.
He crept into their tent, once again wearing women's clothing, and held a knife to the victim's throat, threatening to kill all three teenagers.
Blackwell was handed a second life sentence for this attack and told he must serve eight years before being considered for parole.
The panel identified a series of risk factors that might make it more likely that Blackwell would re-offend.
They said that at the time of his offending, the risk factors had included "Blackwell finding children sexually attractive, thinking it is okay to sexually abuse children, preferring sex to include violence, thinking about sex a lot and thinking he had the right to have sex as and when he wanted." However, the panel also heard evidence of the progress he had made in prison.
A summary of the hearing says: "He had undertaken a large number of accredited programmes to address sexual offending, decision making and better ways of thinking.
He had also engaged with significant work to make sure he remembered all the work he had previously done and that he was still using all the skills and strategies he had learned.
He had been in open conditions and completed a number of releases on temporary licence." The woman Blackwell attacked in South Shields has previously spoken of her fear at the thought of him being freed.
The mum said: "When he got the life sentence I thought it meant life.
This man should never be released."
