SWINDON RAPIST DAVID WHEATON FACES LIFE AFTER SEX ATTACKS
DOUBLE rapist David Wheaton can expect a life sentence having been convicted of sex attacks on two Swindon women.A jury of eight men and four women found the landscape gardener guilty as charged after one hour and twenty minutes deliberation at Winchester Crown Court.
Each guilty verdict of rape was greeted by a cry of yes from the public gallery, as Wheaton held his face in his hands.
Judge Patrick Hooton told him: Bearing in mind the particular nature of these two offences I don't think I would be doing the defendant justice unless I ordered a psychiatric report.
He remanded Wheaton in custody until the report is ready.
On the final day of the six-day trial the jury heard how divorced Wheaton stalked and callously raped a 21-year-old and 14-year-old in town within three weeks.
Wheaton, 29, who at the time of his arrest was living at Waitmead Hotel, Purton, denied raping the 21-year-old in Dorcan Way on August 11 last year.
He also denied raping the 14-year-old at Mannington, near Toothill, on September 2.
His first attack prompted police to stage a reconstruction, with officers playing the role of rapist and victim.
Officers also worked around the clock at a specially-established incident room.
Police snared Wheaton after the attack on the younger woman, as he scrambled through hawthorn trying to escape.
In his closing speech prosecutor Andrew Barnett compared Wheaton's account of the two alleged attacks with those of the victims.
He said: When one looks at both sides of the story you may well think that all the evidence points to the defendant deliberately stalking his prey and getting what he wanted sex at any price.
Wheaton, wearing a grey shirt, listened intently as Mr Barnett urged the jury to consider five key questions.
He asked why should Wheaton have been where he was on each night, asking: Was it just coincidence or was it that he was deliberately lying in wait?
Mr Barnett asked the jury to consider why Wheaton had approached each girl, why either would wish to have sex with him and why, if sex was consensual, were they both so upset afterwards?
Both victims claimed rape, said Mr Barnett, claiming Wheaton accosted them as they walked home alone.
Wheaton said he met the first girl at a kebab van at Coate Water and agreed to have sex with her for £30.
He said he offered to walk the younger girl home when he saw her walking in Wootton Bassett Road after reading reports of a sex attacker on the loose in the Advertiser and she offered him sex.
Defending, Stewart Jones QC said the first victim claimed Wheaton snatched her mobile phone from her but no fingerprints were found on it.
He said she didn't say she had been raped to a friend later.
If you think this was a cash deal that went wrong the defendant must be acquitted, he said.
Mr Jones said Wheaton admitted having sex with the 14 year old, but with consent.
Lust overtook him, said Mr Jones.
We say this case is by no means as simple and straightforward as the Crown will have you believe.
Victims' mothers would like him to hang WE would hang him, is the view shared by the mothers of both of Wheaton's victims.
The 14-year-old's mum hugged her fiance in the public gallery after the guilty verdicts were returned.
The victim still coming to terms with the rape said: I'm just glad I can put it all behind me and get back to normal.
Her mother said: It was the right decision, there were no other verdicts.
I hate Wheaton with a vengeance.
He is an animal and I'd hang him.
I don't hate anybody like I hate that man more so because he shows no remorse and was even laughing and joking in the magistrates' court.
To do that to someone it was bad enough to the older girl but to a 14-year-old and then come out with lies.
He was in his own fantasy world.
What right has he got to go walking people home, to say he was so concerned, and say they offered to have sex with him?
She has talked the rape over with her daughter, who never goes out on her own and is distrustful of men.
She's not happy with anyone walking behind her, even in town, she said.
The mother of Wheaton's 21-year-old victim would also like to see Wheaton hanged.
He's a monster and if anyone ever deserved hanging he does, she said.
My daughter will bear this for the rest of her life and so will I.
We came to Swindon 22 years ago for a better life.
This monster just came along and shattered everything.
She said her daughter took an overdose just before the trial.
I think he's extremely dangerous and would have escalated to more serious rapes, even killings.
If it hadn't been for DS Harry Holwell and DS Mark Garrett I don't think we would have got through this.
This has proved to me that male police officers in rape cases can be very supportive.
The ordeal, she said, and time spent with her daughter after, has caused her to separate from her partner of 19 years.
Attacks were every woman's nightmare IN 17 years as a CID detective based in Swindon, Mark Garrett says he has never met a more dangerous man than David Wheaton.
The Detective Sergeant's pleasure at both verdicts as well as the fact Wheaton has been removed from Swindon's streets for the foreseeable future is not merely professional pride.
DS Garrett, the officer in charge of the case, said: I'm pleased for myself and the 20 officers in the case, but mostly for the two victims.
The 35-year-old detective was the interviewing officer after the attack on the 14-year-old.
Throughout his interview, and subsequent court case, Wheaton maintained that on the night of September 2 last year the girl had offered him sex out of the blue and he took it.
He knew I wasn't believing him, said DS Garrett.
He was extremely vigorous in his defence, and so was the line of questioning.
I think he brainwashed himself into believing what he had done wasn't so bad.
For him it was like living a fantasy.
The method of the attack on the youngster included Wheaton ripping off and retaining her underwear.
These factors, as well as the night-time occurrence, type of location and description of Wheaton soon linked him to the rape of the 21-year-old woman off Dorcan Way three weeks earlier on August 11.
His reaction at his being charged for the Dorcan Way rape was one of horror, said DS Garrett.
He was champing at the bit to give an account of what happened.
Two days after raping the 14-year-old, during questioning, Wheaton told police he met the 21-year-old woman at the Coate Water kebab van in August.
He gave her £5 because she was down, he told police.
They parted but bumped into each other near the Forte Posthouse and had sex.
DS Garrett said that on September 5 after being charged with rape Wheaton changed his story.
He said they met by prior agreement, said DS Garrett.
The detective asked him if he hadn't mentioned paying for sex beforehand because he was embarrassed but Wheaton couldn't answer.
DS Garrett made sure he explored every facet of his suspect.
Police confirmed that Wheaton is not thought to be connected with any other sex attack in Swindon.
A nationwide circulation of Wheaton's methods also failed to link him to attacks elsewhere.
He told me he is a self-confessed control freak, said the detective.
Having got divorced, having to accept responsibility, he became bitter.
I would describe him as devious and calculating and the most dangerous man I've had to deal with.
I have no doubt he would have continued what he was doing unless he was stopped.
He built a fantasy and he started to believe his own lies to justify his actions to himself.
He's a loner.
As a landscape gardener with fairly large contracts he is a powerful, fit man easily able to overpower his victims.
I am convinced he went to both locations with the sole purpose of finding a woman to attack.
It was nothing short of what nightmares are made of for women.
Police allocated both Wheaton's victims a victim liaison officer who kept close contact with them.
While the older woman suffered a great deal emotionally because of her ordeal, said DS Garrett, the younger girl found strength because she was so pleased to still be alive.
One other rape in Croft Road in December 1997 is currently being investigated in Swindon, said DS Garrett, although a series of indecent assaults remain on file.
Wheaton will learn his fate from Judge Patrick Hooton in four to six weeks' time after a psychiatric report is made on him.
DS Garrett said: He still believes himself, he is so arrogant.
I don't think the report will find Wheaton at all mentally insufficient.
Just dangerous.
