Lotto rapist’s victim tried to burn down his house after he was freed from jail early
‘Reached breaking point’: Julie Barnett, 32
A BUSINESSWOMAN who was raped as a child by a multi-millionaire lottery winner tried to set fire to his house in protest at his early release from prison.
Julie Barnett, 32, was furious that probation officers failed to tell her David Dyas was being let out of jail.
Armed with matches, petrol, legal documents from the case and Victim Support guidelines, she used the paperwork to set a front door mat alight
She said yesterday: ‘All victims have a breaking point and I’d reached mine.’
The mother of two, who has waived her right to anonymity, never got over her abuse ordeal at the hands of Dyas – her uncle – when she was eight. Dyas won £8million in 1998, and nine years later he was sentenced to 15 years for rape and sex attacks on schoolgirls.
Married Mrs Barnett was told she would be given several months’ notice of his release, along with counselling and the installation of CCTV around her home.
But she claims National probation Service officials broke the news to her two days after her attacker was let out of prison in January. In desperation, she made 30 calls in 48 hours begging for help.
When there was no response, she went to Dyas’s home in Newbridge, South Wales, where she scattered Victim Support papers in the porch and set fire to the doormat.
however, the property was empty – Dyas, 62, was in a safe house 30 miles away and his wife was away.
prosecutor Nicholas Gareth Jones said: ‘There was minor damage to the house, more through luck than judgment. her aunt arrived home at midnight and found the burned papers and the fire damage.’
he added: ‘The prosecution accepts that she has been psychologically damaged by what happened to her as a child.’
The court heard Mrs Barnett was furious that her aunt had stood by Dyas despite his con- victions. The businesswoman, who runs a domestic cleaning company, was admitted to a psychiatric ward after the fire attack on February 6 and was later remanded in custody.
last week at Newport Crown Court she admitted arson and was given a 12-month suspended sentence, a 40- day rehabilitation order and a lifetime restraining order.
Speaking from her home in West Wales yesterday, Mrs Barnett said: ‘I regret what I did but I was having a breakdown.
‘I wanted to get the attention of the probation Service and Victim Support. I was afraid of what Dyas could do to me and my children.
‘All victims have a breaking point and I’d reached mine.’
She added: ‘When I found out Dyas was out I locked myself and the children in the house – I was that afraid. I went on the internet and read about the protection we should have been getting.
‘But I didn’t get that help and I still haven’t had it now.
‘While I was on remand I met other girls who had retaliated against paedophiles. I was not alone.
‘But it was never my intention to harm Dyas or my aunt – it was a cry for the help that I was entitled to.’
Mrs Barnett sobbed in court as Judge Tom Crowther QC said he accepted she had been ‘driven to despair’.
‘Arson is a serious offence and deserves prison,’ he said.
‘But I can’t ignore the continuing painful effects of what happened to you when you were a child.’
The National probation Service later apologised.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice, which runs the service, said sex offenders on licence were ‘ robustly risk assessed and subject to a strict set of conditions’.
‘It was a cry for help’