Sex attacker caught after 35 years
IT took 35 years – but DNA technology finally put a sex attacker behind bars. Raymond Ellis targeted a lone 17-year-old girl walking home after a night out in Sheffield, Bristol Crown Court heard.
After a chase in which she lost a stiletto heel, he struck her in the face with her shoe before taking her to a grass bank and assaulting her.
Ellis left her tied her up with her own underwear and fled – but three decades later DNA evidence led police to Ellis and he was arrested in August 2019.
Ellis, now 63, of William Street in Bristol, pleaded guilty to indecent assault, carrying a maximum 10 years at the time it was committed in 1987. The court heard that, today, the attack would have been charged as rape, carrying a maximum of life imprisonment.
Recorder James Bromige jailed Ellis for five years, telling him: “This was an abhorrent sexual assault. This is the shortest sentence I can impose. Reducing it to a suspended level would not be within the interests of justice.”
He did not find Ellis dangerous in respect of committing further specified offences. He ordered him to register his whereabouts to police for life.
Craig Lowe, prosecuting, said the woman was walking home when Ellis followed her and she started to run.
As she did so she lost a stiletto heel and Ellis picked up the shoe.
Mr Lowe said: “He struck her in the face with that, it hit her in the mouth. A tooth became loose and it started to bleed.”
The court heard Ellis dragged the bleeding woman through a garden to a grass bank, where the assault took place.
Mr Lowe told the court: “She said it felt like a lifetime. Afterwards the defendant ran off.”
Years later Ellis told police: “I don’t remember anything because I have brain damage. I’ve had my head smashed in since then.”
The court heard in 1977 he was convicted of indecency having forced a female to commit a sex act. In 1983 he was jailed for four years for assault – after trying to steal a woman’s handbag and kicking her in the head and stomach.
The victim of the 1987 attack said she had lost trust in men as a result and was left very angry for a long time.
Mark Kellet, defending, said his client sustained a brain injury since the attack and suffered from schizoaffective disorder – a mental health disorder marked by a combination of schizophrenia symptoms such as hallucinations or delusions, and mood disorder symptoms such as depression or mania.
Mr Kellet said his client was receiving care but if he was sent to prison he would be released without support and would be a greater risk to the public as a result.