DNA traps sex attacker decades later

A MAN who was eventually trapped by DNA evidence and jailed more than three decades after carrying out “the most serious example of indecent assault” on a teenager has had his five-year sentence increased.

Raymond Ellis chased his 17-year-old victim before dragging her along a passageway behind Skinnerthorpe Road in Sheffield and assaulting her in March 1987.

Ellis, now aged 63, of Eastville, Bristol, was sentenced at Bristol Crown Court in May this year to five years in prison over the brutal attack which has since “blighted” the life of the victim, the Court of Appeal heard.

His sentence was quashed yesterday and he will now serve seven and a half years in prison after an appeal by the Attorney General argued the original punishment had been unduly lenient. The appeal court said his original sentence could have been worked out from a starting point of 10 years imprisonment with a reduction for his guilty plea, rather than from nine years and four months with discounts which brought it down to five years.

Lady Justice Carr said “the conduct here was at the very highest level” for an indecent assault as it was a sustained attack involving both the use and threat of violence.

There was also the use of a weapon, physical injury, restraint, the targeting of a lone victim late at night who was dragged down an alleyway.

All this was all carried out while Ellis, who had previously attacked another girl in an alleyway, was out on probation for a burglary offence in 1986.

Ellis dragged the teenager in to an alleyway, tied her up with her own underwear and assaulted her. She had been to the pub with friends and decided to walk home but Ellis followed her.

During the attack the teenager asked Ellis if he was going to kill her. She also told him she was just 15 years old, “hoping this would change his mind”, the court heard.

The “frightened” victim was still tied up when Ellis fled after the assault. She managed to get to telephone box and alert police who at the time were unable to identify her attacker – but evidence had been left on her jacket. DNA breakthroughs meant that decades later police were able to track Ellis down and make a forensic match to the jacket stain. Ellis, who was living in a care home, said he could not remember his crime as he had a brain injury but pleaded guilty after the DNA evidence was revealed.

The victim says the attack had “ruined her chances in life” and she is “now a shell of herself”, the court heard. She is on antidepressants and sleeps badly, according to her victim impact statement.