Rapist in ‘catch me if you can’ taunt to police gets 12 years
A FUGITIVE rapist who challenged police to “catch me if you can you piggy ******** ” has been jailed for 12 years after officers found him hiding in a cupboard.
Ben Waterman, 21, had assaulted his victim before and after raping her twice and committed another serious sexual offence on what a judge called “a night of absolutely appalling abuse”.
Waterman subjected her to “humiliation” and “degradation” after holding her “hostage”.
When he was arrested days later, police found him hiding bare-chested in a cupboard, screaming: “I’m a rapist.”
Officers revealed Waterman had taunted them while he was on the run.
He had posted on Facebook: “Catch me if you can you piggy ******** . I’ve been on Preston Road a month. Open your eyes, boys.”
Waterman, of Hull, was convicted by a jury of two counts of rape and a sexual assault. He admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, common assault and criminal damage.
In a statement read out at Hull Crown Court, the rape victim said she was so badly traumatised she has flashbacks, takes sleeping tablets and dare not go out at night or alone.
Waterman claimed the pair had consensual sex after a night out in Hull on January 12, but admitted subjecting her to a sustained and brutal assault while giving evidence at his trial in July. He was drunk and had taken amphetamine on the night of the rapes, the court heard. The victim later told police she had tearfully pleaded with Waterman to stop having sex with her before he punched her in the face.
Jailing Waterman on Monday, Recorder Caroline Goodwin QC told him he “seemed to enjoy threatening and taunting” people. She said after going back to a house with the victim, “what followed was a night of absolutely appalling abuse”.
Waterman was also made subject to a restraining order indefinitely and must register as a sex offender for life.
The attack was the latest incident in a long line of crimes committed by Waterman. In separate incidents, he assaulted a pregnant woman three days before she gave birth, fractured a woman’s eye socket, assaulted a shop supervisor and stole a handbag from a staff room at a shop weeks before Christmas.