Rapist who preyed on young girls is given second jail term

[dutchman]

A former Leamington man who has already served a prison sentence for raping a teenager has been jailed for 18 years for raping a woman and girls aged seven and 11.



Geoffrey Collett, who lived in Eden Court, Leamington, at the time, had pleaded not guilty at Warwick Crown Court to charges of rape and one of indecent assault.

But after almost six hours the jury unanimously found him guilty of all the charges.

Collett, 46, of Chester Street, Coventry, was also ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

Prosecutor Simon Phillips said that in October 2010 a young woman told police that Collett had raped her about ten years ago when she around 11. She said Collett, who knew her mum, had followed her upstairs at her home in Leamington while her mother was out and attacked her in her own bedroom.

The young woman told the court she kept quiet about it until 2009 when she confided in someone and later decided to go to the police.

By then Collett had served a 30-month sentence imposed in 2004 for raping an 18-year-old in her home after going to visit her with flowers shortly after she had given birth.

Police got in touch with those who had come into contact with Collett over the years, including a woman who in 2002 had made a complaint about an incident in the late 1980s. But at that time no action was taken after he had been interviewed and denied it.

In a victim statement read out in court after Collett had been convicted, one said that as a result of being raped by him at his home when she was about seven, she has had to seek counselling.

She said the offence had left her with “feelings of being dirty and tainted” which have affected her confidence around men and affected consensual sexual relationships.

Collett’s other young victim said it had robbed her of her childhood and left her feeling “ashamed and dirty.”

As a result of the police enquiries, an older woman also revealed she had been raped by Collett on more than one occasion in the 1990s.

But Collett claimed she had consented to sex, and expressed bemusement that she and his two other victims had made complaints against him. After the jury had returned its verdicts, Peter Freeman, defending, said Collett had lived “an unblemished life” since his release from his 2004 rape sentence.