A vicious rapist who struck twice in just three mo

A vicious rapist who struck twice in just three months was today (FRI) jailed for ten years.

Skinhead Lee Robinson, 25, carried out almost identical attacks on two terrified young women in east London.

He followed both victims at night, dragged them off the street, and then beat and raped them.

One woman was so badly battered that her face swelled to almost twice its normal size.

Robinson was caught for the second attack, and jailed for six years.

And while he was in prison, DNA evidence linking him to the first rape was discovered, and he was convicted last month at the Old Bailey.

Robinson first struck on April 24, 1996, when he followed a 22-year-old virgin as she walked along Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow, at night.

He dragged the screaming victim down an alleyway, punched her repeatedly in the face and head, and ripped off her clothes.

After raping the sobbing woman, Robinson asked her if she wanted money, and then fled.

The woman crawled to a nearby petrol station, where customers phoned the police.

In July 1996, just three months later, he stalked a 23-year-old university graduate as she walked to her sister’s home in Wanstead in east London.

He bundled her into some woodland, beat her into submission and then raped her.

The court had heard the first victim suffered an horrific beating in the attack.

Prosecutor Peter Finnigan said: ‘Her face was so badly swollen it was one-and-a-half times its normal size.

She was unable to open her eyelids.

‘She haad been beaten violently, far more violently than was necessary to force her to submit.

‘She was punched repeatedly to the face and head, and had her head banged against a wall and the ground.

She was in a dreadful state, and was very distressed.

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The woman was so badly injured that she was not released from hospital for almost two weeks.

Police conducted house-to-house inquiries after the first attack.

They spoke to Robinson, who lived nearby in Blackhorse Lane, but he was not arrested.

But, after being jailed for six years for the first attack, officers visited him in his cell early last year and took a DNA sample.

It matched DNA evidence found in the first attack, and the court heard there was a one in 110 million chance that Robinson was the rapist.

He was last month convicted of rape and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

Sentencing Robinson to ten years concurrent on each charge the Common Serjeant of London, Judge Neil Denison told him:

‘By your actions you have caused great damage to the victim which is likely to affect her for the rest of her life.

I was considering a discretionary life sentence but I have been persuaded by your counsel by what I have read in the pre-sentence report to pass a lengthy determinate sentence.

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ends