Rapist fails in bid to have 8-year jail term reduced
A PREDATORY rapist, brought to justice more than 30 years after he attacked a young woman in a Rugby street, has failed in a bid to have his eight-year jail term reduced.
Ronald Dickens was 16 when he followed his victim as she made her way home from a night out in November 1985. He grabbed her from behind on Hunter’s Lane, Rugby, pulling her into an alley and violently raping her.
Dickens, 47, of Phipps Avenue, Rugby, escaped punishment for his crime but was jailed for six years shortly afterwards for raping another woman in her own home.
Police kept the evidence from the first rape on file and, 30 years later, a cold case review and advances in DNA science led to Dickens being linked to the crime.
He was handed an eight-year jail term in November last year at Warwick Crown Court, having pleaded guilty to the rape.
Judge Melbourne Inman QC, sitting at London’s Criminal Appeal Court, heard his lawyers argue that he was treated too harshly and that his sentence should have been reduced because of his youth at the time.
While he had been “dangerous” as a teenager, the six-year rison sentence he served in the 1980s had “led to a change in his life.”
He had “led a law-abiding and valuable life since then”, it was argued.
But refusing to cut his sentence, Judge Inman said: “We are satisfied that the sentencing judge approached this case entirely correctly.
“He said he was taking account of the age this appellant was at the time and the fact he had served a six-year sentence which left him a changed man.
“The sentence of eight years cannot be criticised or described as manifestly excessive,” concluded the judge.
Mr Justice Popplewell and Lady Justice Sharp agreed that the appeal would be dismissed.