Victim sees rapist jailed 33 years after attack

ONE of the victims of the “early bird rapist” has flown more than 4,000 miles to face her attacker 33 years later, as he was jailed following a DNA breakthrough.

Yolande Kennedy, 51, who was just 18 when she was raped at knifepoint by Christopher Clark, yesterday visited Basildon Crown Court from her home in Florida to see the 68-year-old jailed for 13 years.

He was also handed a five years’ extended licence period.

Nicknamed the “early bird rapist” after a string of morning sex attacks at homes across Essex in the 1980s, Clark was jailed for life in 1997 for a separate sex attack in Bristol, but weeks before his parole hearing detectives made a breakthrough in Miss Kennedy’s case.

Clark was finally caught for the rape after detectives reviewed the case in 2016 and found a match using advances in DNA technology.