NOTTING HILL RAPIST SENTENCED TO LIFE FOR MULTIPLE SEX ATTACKS
NOTTING Hill rapist Tony Maclean was convicted at the Old Bailey yesterday of seven sex attacks on women during a six-year period.Maclean, 32, a weightlifter, made a career out of sex offences, the court was told.
Maclean, a father-of-two, of Clarendon Walk, Lancaster Estate East, Notting Hill, was found guilty of three rapes, three indecent assaults, and an attempted rape.
He was also convicted of burglary with intent to steal from another woman, but cleared of breaking into her flat with intent to rape her.
She had found her flat ransacked and her teddy bear tied up when she came home.
Maclean was also cleared of attempting to rape and indecently assaulting two of his seven victims, but was convicted of indecently assaulting one and attempting to rape the second.
The burly, 5ft 11in tall Maclean showed no emotion as the verdicts were given by the seven-men, five-women jury.
He received three life sentences for the rapes and a total of 12 years for the other offences.
The life sentences and the 12-year jail term are concurrent.
The Judge, Recorder of London, Sir James Miskin, told Maclean: 'You have been found guilty by this sensible jury of three perfectly foul rapes.
Against the background of the other offences and your appalling past record, although not of a sexual nature, you are a total menace to women.
Those three rapes were absolutely foul and on each you will go to prison for life.' The Judge added that Maclean committed a number of unpleasant offences, of which he had tried to avoid responsibility.
'You kept your mouth tight shut when you were arrested.' Earlier in court, Maclean's barrister, Mr Nigel Salts, QC, said in mitigation that although some violence was used, there was less than the Judge had seen in other cases at the Old Bailey.
He also said that Maclean had not committed any other unnatural sexual acts during the offences.
Immediately afterward, Detective Superintendent Jim Hutchison, the man in charge of the case, said Maclean could have ended up killing a victim had he not been caught.
'He is a very dangerous man.
I have no doubt that the next progression would be that, if any of his victims fought back, he would kill.' He said Maclean chose his victims because they were attractive and picked on those living in insecure flats which were easily accessible from large communal gardens.
He stalked them for some time before he attacked.
Some of the victims could no longer have normal relationships with men after what happened to them, according to Detective Constable Carol Lorrigan.
'The effects, both emotionally and physically, have been devastating,' she said.
She has counselled the victims and supported the three who had to come to court to give evidence.
She said the attacks had a very great impact on all the women, but in different ways.
'Some dress themselves down so they are not attractive any more.
Some cannot sleep at night or go into a house on their own.
Others cannot have normal relationships with men any more.' None harboured feelings of hatred or revenge, she added.
The detective whose 'hunch' finally trapped Maclean said he had had a 'gut reaction' that he was the Notting Hill rapist.
Detective Constable Graham Hamilton, one of the team set up to catch the rapist, said he was looking at known burglars in the area.
He was 'drawn to Maclean because he had the ingredients of the man we were looking for.'
