YATELEY NURSE KEVIN COBB SENTENCED TO SEVEN LIFE TERMS FOR DRUGS, RAPE, AND MANSLAUGHTER
Nurse Kevin Cobb showed no emotion or remorse yesterday as he was given seven life sentences for killing a colleague and drugging and raping women patients.The judge said Cobb continued abusing women with a date-rape style drug despite an earlier rape attempt going disastrously wrong after nursing sister Susan Annis died when he spiked her drink.
Cobb, 38, preyed on sick women who went to the casualty department of St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey, Surrey.
He drugged them with Midazolam and assaulted them in the knowledge that they would not remember what had happened to them, said Judge Martin Stephens at the Old Bailey.
'It would be difficult to envisage what could constitute a greater breach of trust,' said Judge Stephens told Cobb.
'You are a very serious danger to women.' He added: 'You have been convicted of a series of offences which brought anguish to your victims and dismay to the public at large - particularly nurses and the medical profession.
Three women going into hospital for treatment - with all the worry and stress that involves - entrusting themselves to what they expect are proper care and procedures, only to find themselves drugged and violated by a nurse.' The 'poignant and most tragic' of Cobb's victims was Miss Annis, 'a delightful young woman with outstanding human qualities'.
Cobb, from Yateley, Hampshire, was convicted on May 17 of the manslaughter of 31-year-old Miss Annis; four charges of drugging women with intent to rape; and two offences of rape at the casualty department at St Peter's Hospital.
The prosecution told the court Miss Annis, from Crawley Hospital, West Sussex, died at a nurses' home at Royal Brompton Hospital, west London, in November 1996.
Cobb said he found her body and was not suspected.
An inquest recorded an open verdict.
However, he was arrested in January 1999 after patient Miss Janine Cuddington complained she blacked out on a hospital trolley and came round to find herself being raped by a smirking Cobb.
Miss Cuddington, a 33-year-old IT sales executive from Surrey, who has waived her right to anonymity, told the court he said to her: 'Oh you remember that, do you?
Well, don't worry you won't remember it later.' During his trial, Cobb denied using the fast-acting drug - available for use in minor surgery in casualty departments - to stupefy his victims and create memory loss.
Cobb was watched by his three victims and their families, as well as the parents of Miss Annis, as his barrister said he still denied the offences.
Police believe Cobb was responsible for attacking other women patients but they knew nothing about it.
After the case, Detective Superintendent Dave Cook, of Surrey Police, said another woman patient had come forward after recognising Cobb's photograph in newspaper reports.
Outside court, Miss Cuddington said: 'It is a shame the life sentences can't be served consecutively.' Audrey and David Annis, of Haywards Heath, West Sussex, welcomed the life sentences.
Mr.
Annis said: 'Cobb was a professional man and he therefore had no excuse.
I cannot see any way to forgive him.'
