Former soldier jailed indefinitely for string of sex attacks

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A former soldier who carried out a string of sex attacks has been jailed indefinitely.

Judge Nicholas Price QC described Brian Witty, 41, as a “predatory rapist” as he told the former Territorial Army Parachute Regiment captain he would serve at least eight years before he could be considered for release.

Witty, who told one victim who rejected him: “I don't believe this, I'm a good-looking bloke”, was convicted last month of three rapes and one sexual assault on four women between 1995 and 2011.

Judge Price, sentencing Witty at Kingston Crown Court today, told him he was a “bullying, self-obsessed, arrogant sexual predator who was determined to indulge in fulfilling your desires, irrespective and dismissive of their pleas”.

Witty, of Twickenham Road, in Teddington, south-west London, met two of his victims through a dating website and preyed on the others after chance encounters in bars.

But after he was arrested he claimed the sexual encounters were consensual.

Judge Price jailed him for six years for a rape in 1995, to run concurrently with three separate indeterminate sentences for two other rapes and a sexual assault.

Witty was told he would serve a minimum of eight years behind bars.

Handing down his sentence, Judge Price said: “There is no doubt in my mind that you present a very real danger to women, and the only appropriate sentence in your case is one of imprisonment for public protection.

“It is clear to me you set out to prey on vulnerable women.

“You hid your base intentions behind a veneer of charm and lulled your victims into a false sense of security.

“Each of them was beguiled into believing that with your military background and apparent social attributes that you were a gentleman and would behave as one.

“Each of your victims described in chilling evidence how you went from being plausible and caring into a bullying, self-obsessed, arrogant sexual predator who was determined to indulge in fulfilling your desires, irrespective and dismissive of their pleas that you should desist.”

PA