Sadistic sex attacker given whole-life term may be serial killer
SADISTIC rapist and child sex killer John Taylor yesterday became the first person in Britain to be handed a “whole life tariff” for rape and sexual assaults.
Now police have admitted he could be responsible for a series of unsolved murders and rapes stretching over four decades.
John Taylor was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in 2002 for the abduction and murder of 16-year-old Leanne Tiernan two years before.
Her body was found by a walker with her hands tied and a leather dog collar around her neck that led police to Taylor’s door.
Yesterday the 62-year-old was told he would spend the rest of his life in prison after admitting 16 new crimes including rape, sexual assault and grievous bodily harm against five victims between 1977 and 1996.
Shocking
In 2003 he admitted raping two other women in the 1980s.
Life tariffs have previously only been given for murder.
Taylor showed no emotion as Judge Robin Mairs said he would die behind bars after his “20-year campaign of rape and sexual assaults against children and women, fuelled by a sadistic desire to inflict pain for sexual gratification”.
Taylor appeared on video link before Leeds Crown Court for sentence, where shocking details of his assaults, including one on a seven-year-old girl, were revealed.
But now West Yorkshire Police’s HMET cold case review team are set to probe a series of unsolved murders, including Lindsay Rimmer, 13, Yvonne Fitt, 33, Rebecca Hall, 19, and Deborah Wood, 20.
Detective Superintendent Jim Dunkerley said: “There are other murders in West Yorkshire and beyond. We have got a monster who could have done all these things. Can I discount that he is a serial killer? No.”
Yesterday Stephen Wood, prosecuting, told how in 1984 Taylor abducted the seven-year-old, tied her to a drainpipe and subjected her to a two-hour sex assault.
He then walked her home – threatening to kill her if she told anyone. The court also heard how Taylor forced a pregnant 27-yearold mother at knifepoint to perform a sex act on him in 1982.
Taylor’s first known victim was a 19-year-old barmaid he raped as she walked to work in 1977. In a harrowing victim impact statement, she said: “When evil touches you there is no way back to where you were. I died that day.”
Taylor carried out another sordid attack on a woman cycling to work in 1987 and another woman told how he violently raped her in her home in 1996.
After the hearing, prosecutor Mr Wood said that he believed Taylor’s whole-life tariff was a legal first.