Kentish Express Ashford & District
Express helps solve 1980s rape
Photo in paper helped victim identify attacker
Sex beast Jeremy Smith has been jailed for life after the Kentish Express helped solve a double rape.
The 54-year-old Charing thug had been pictured in our paper after he received a 27-year sentence. But it was seen by a woman who then telephoned detectives and told them: “He was the man who raped me!”
The victim – who was attacked in the 1980s – later told police officers: “In May 2013 I opened the newspaper to see a photo of a man who had been convicted of sexual attacks.
“My life was turned upside down when I saw that photo of him. I knew that he was the person who had raped me when I was very young.”
Investigating officer Det Sgt Matt Banks has praised the courage of both women for coming forward to report the vile and violent attacks.
He said: “I’d like to praise the courage of the victims for coming forward following their ordeals which, although took place some time ago, still affect them to this day.”
Smith, of Pett Lane, Charing, has now been handed a life sentence after he admitted the rapes, sex assaults and beatings.
It will mean – that together with the previous 14 sex attacks – he will have to serve 14 years before he will be considered for parole.
And when he is eventually released he will be in licence for life and can be recalled to prison for any further serious violations.
During some of the attacks he had armed himself with a bottle and his victim had faced a 20-minute long ordeal.
Last year we told how four victims had been subjected to sex and physical assaults – including some victims being pinned to the floor to satisfy his thirst for violent sex.
And it was that report which was seen by one of the two women who recognised Smith as her violent attacker in the 1980s.
In her Victim Impact Statement, read out at Canterbury Crown Court, she said how her life changed forever.
She wrote: “I was young and quite innocent and very happy. But after he attacked me my life changed.
“I started sleeping without opening my window. He made me afraid of the dark.
“The best way I can describe the effects of the attacks on me is to compare it to a scar that you may get when you cut yourself.
“Once it has healed there is always a physical reminder to what has happened.
“My wounds cannot be seen because t hey are mental wounds which can never properly heal ... no one can see the scars I have.”
She told how her mental wounds can be opened “by a loud bang, or by a power cut when I think he may be coming back to get me”.
She continued: “Just thinking about what he did to me and how he has hurt me and how my personality changed as a result of what he did to me.
“I have lived with that fear for years until I saw his face in the paper, and the scars and wounds have been reopened because they never truly heal.”
After the sentencing for the brutal attacks on two women, Det Sgt Banks added: “Smith is a violent, sexually aggressive and controlling man who overpowered these women and subjected them to horrendous and frightening ordeals. He poses a very real threat to any woman.”