Jailed, rapist who f led UK to live Hollywood high life
A RAPE victim waited 20 years for justice while her attacker lived the high life with Hollywood stars, it emerged yesterday.
Pierre Antoine Bate partied with the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio after he fled Britain following his attack on Linda Donnelly.
But after a campaign by his victim – who has waived her right to anonymity – and a cold case review by the Metropolitan Police, he is now behind bars.
Bate broke into Miss Donnelly’s South London home in 1996 and raped her in a four-hour ordeal while her two children slept nearby, a court heard.
After the attack he fled the country and moved to Los Angeles where he led a decadent lifestyle and partied with Alist stars.
He became a real estate agent in upmarket Santa Barbara in California, where he boasted of his ‘great life’ on social media. There, he claimed to have mixed with celebrities including Oscar-winner DiCaprio and even claims to have dated Australian pop singer Natalia Imbruglia, though this is unconfirmed.
He also says he became good friends with the former drummer of 90s funk band Jamiroquai, Nick Van Gelder. Meanwhile Miss Donnelly, now 45, fought tirelessly to try to identify and bring her attacker to justice. She suffered a setback when she discovered some of the original evidence had been destroyed.
Southwark Crown Court was told evidence including traces of fingerprints had been dumped by police when it was seven years old, when it should have been kept for 30 years.
At one stage of the investigation Miss Donnelly was even told her case did not exist, the court heard.
Bate was finally arrested in 2011 after the case was reviewed by the Met. A DNA sample recovered from Miss Donnelly’s bedding was found to match with Bate, whose details were on the system because of another sex offence he had committed in London.
British authorities applied for Bate to be extradited and last month he was convicted of raping Miss Donnelly.
He was sentenced to 24 years in prison for what was described as a ‘vicious and prolonged’ attack.
In court, Mr Van Gelder gave evidence in Bate’s defence and appeared to support the rapist’s claims they had mixed with DiCaprio.
Recalling the chilling attack, Miss Donnelly said: ‘I tried to get up and run but he pushed me back down on the bed. It was an absolute living nightmare… He kept saying he was leaving but he just came back for more.
‘I was blindfolded and choked to the point of nearly passing out.’
Miss Donnelly says the effects of the attack have been long-lasting, saying it left her unable to ‘socialise or trust anyone’. ‘I isolated myself from everyone,’ she said.
Det Supt John Macdonald of the Met offered an apology to Miss Donnelly for the destruction of evidence but said the conviction ‘was a result of some excellent police work’.
‘I was blindfolded and choked’