Daughter’s fear over rapist dad
Daughter of rape officer freed early says he’s still a risk to public
A RAPIST policeman freed just seven years into a double life sentence is still a danger to the public, his daughter warned yesterday.
Stephen Mitchell was jailed in 2010 for attacking up to 30 victims during a five-year period and was told he may never be released from jail.
But it has emerged that the 50-year-old, from Glasgow, has already been freed.
Speaking anonymously, his daughter said yesterday: ‘He’s very, very dangerous. He’s not human in my eyes.’
Mitchell was freed months before the Parole Board provoked outrage by releasing black cab rapist John Worboys after just ten years, a decision later overturned.
THE daughter of a rapist policeman freed just seven years into a double life sentence yesterday said his release was an insult to his victims.
She warned that Stephen Mitchell still posed a grave danger to women, adding: ‘He should be somewhere where he can’t hurt people.’
The depraved Northumbria Police officer, who preyed on vulnerable women he met on duty, claimed up to 30 victims in a five-year reign of terror.
But it has emerged that the Parole Board released the 50-year-old even though a trial judge said he was such a ruthless sex predator he may never be safe to be released.
Psychiatric reports had recommended he should never be freed.
Last week, he was pictured looking relaxed and happy as he went for a bike ride in the sunshine near his family home in Glasgow, having been released early at his first parole hearing.
Speaking anonymously to ITV News, his daughter said: ‘I think it’s an insult to the victims.
‘I grew up with him. I have been around him enough to know that he can manipu- late people, he can hurt people and he has hurt people. I think he should be back inside.
‘He should be somewhere where he can’t hurt people because outside, in the public he will hurt somebody.’
Describing her father as ‘very, very dangerous’, she added: ‘I think he does pose a risk to anybody in the public. I have had first-hand experience of his abuse. He’s not human in my eyes.’
The secret decision to release Mitchell was made just months before the outcry over black cab rapist John Worboys, who was freed after only eight years. That decision was later overturned by the High Court.
Yesterday, MPs and victims demanded a similar inquiry into the Mitchell case be held amid fears he could strike again.
He was found guilty at Newcastle Crown Court in 2010 of rape, indecent assault and misconduct in a public office, involving a total of seven women, although 30 made complaints about him.
It was said he told his victims: ‘I am the law, I can do anything I want.’
A jury cleared him of other charges including rape involving another nine women.
Handed two life sentences, Mitchell was told he would not be eligible for parole for at least seven a half years, minus the year he spent on remand.
But he was released by the Parole Board at his first hearing in September last year.
Mitchell’s ex-wife Julie Vacher was shocked by the decision to release him, saying: ‘I want nothing to do with him.’
The first woman to report Mitchell to police said she was ‘sick to the stomach’ to learn of his release in a phone call from the Parole Board.
The 60-year-old was suffering from cancer at the time she said she was raped in a police station in 2006.
She said: ‘I received a phone call from the Parole Board to say his release was imminent and I felt absolutely sick to my stomach.
‘I’m horrified. He is a monster, he is addicted to sex and he will do this again. I’m absolutely terrified. He knows it was me that reported him in the first place and I’m terrified he will come and get me.
‘It’s disgusting that he has been set free.
‘He is like Jekyll and Hyde and he has tricked the Parole Board.
‘He is too dangerous to ever be considered safe and there must be a review so this decision is reversed.’
Mitchell had arrested the woman for stealing hair dye.
She later told police that he pushed her into a room and attacked her, ignoring her desperate pleas for him to stop because she had cancer.
Mitchell allegedly told her: ‘No one will believe you, you’re a thief.’
She recalled: ‘I knew every second of it when we were in that police suite that he had done it before and would do it again.’
The woman added: ‘He is a predator – that’s why I went to police. I’m still petrified of him. I have been to hell and back. It changed my life into a nightmare.
‘I am in remission from cancer but I suffer from other health problems as a result of that day. I became depressed and went from being eight stone to a size 18 and now I can hardly walk.’
Mitchell was acquitted at trial of the attack.
Victim’s rights campaigner Harry Fletcher said: ‘Yet again the Parole Board are sending an extraordinary bad message to victims of serious sexual crime.
‘The Parole Board needs to make public their reasons for coming to this shocking decision.’
‘It’s an insult to the victims’