LIVING NEXT DOOR TO DANGER
Neighbour tells of life of hell caused by vile rapist
PROWLING pervert Eric McKenna has been jailed for 23 years after justice finally caught up with him three decades after he pounced on lone women in terrifying stranger rapes.
For 30 years he got away with the shocking attacks but the truth was finally revealed after he was arrested following a petty squabble with a neighbour. Two rapes from the 1980s had been subjected to cold case reviews and when McKenna was asked for a standard DNA sample when arrested, police finally had the evidence to link him to the sex attacks.
Since the violent rapes on the outskirts of Newcastle in 1983 and 1988, McKenna had lived inconspicuously.
Along with his accountant wife, he has brought up his daughter, who is now in her 30s, and he has held down a steady job as a scaffolder – while keeping his dark side hidden.
But now the self-confessed loner, of Arthur’s Hill, Newcastle, who tried to
commit suicide on the first day of his trial and maintains his innocence, has been locked up at Newcastle Crown Court via a video link to prison.
He was also ordered to sign the sex offender register for life and was made subject to a restraining order banning him from contacting the victims.
The stranger rapes had already been subjected to a cold case review as part of Operation Phoenix after samples of DNA found on the victims were kept from the 1980s.
And when the swab taken from McKenna, following the neighbour dispute on March 6, 2016, was run through the system, police finally nailed cases which had remained unsolved for 30 and 35 years.
McKenna, now 60, denies responsibility for the rapes – despite DNA evidence showing the chances of him not being the culprit were around one in a billion.
Lee Fish, defending, said: “He maintains he did not commit these offences. That limits what I can realistically say on his behalf.”
During his trial, his two victims relived their ordeals, which they have spent decades trying to forget, from behind screens.
One told how she had been out with friends in the Melbourne Street area of Newcastle in March 1988.
The then-18-year-old student said she had been to a party and decided to go home alone around 1am as her flatmate did not want to leave. It was in the area of New Bridge Street that she was raped.
The other victim, who was raped in 1983 near the High Level Bridge in Gateshead, told the court McKenna claimed he had a knife. The woman, who had been pushed down a bank, told how he stripped her and raped her. She was made to wait 10 to 15 minutes to speak to officers and prosecutors said her treatment by police was “appalling”.
After the case, Det Con Mick Wilson of Northumbria Police’s rape investigation team said: “McKenna’s crimes were planned and were horrific experiences for the two victims. I want to commend them for their extreme bravery. When they first reported their crimes they did not receive the support from the police that they should have done and we have since apologised to them.”