A CONVICTED rapist who was freed from prison and preyed on women again was jailed for life in Belfast yesterday. Belfast Crown Court judge Mr Justice McCollum told Mark Thomas Clarke (29), that he would always be a serious threat to women.
"I wish to put it on record that I regard your liberty, even for the shortest of periods, as a serious and unacceptable danger to women," he declared. Mr Justice McCollum said Clarke's life sentence was imposed, "not simply in a spirit of retribution, but rather in a spirit of concern for the welfare of women".
Good behaviour had secured Clarke's early release in June 1994 after serving just 3 1/2 years of a nine year term for rape and attempted rape. At the time Clarke, of no fixed abode but originally from the Crumlin Road area, was serving a seven year sentence for attempted rape.
In September last year Clarke kidnapped two girls in one night, but both escaped. The judge said both victims had suffered "severe psychological trauma and, as a result of their experiences, naturally still feel nervous about going about the streets". Their escape, he added "was purely due to the presence of mind of one, and the courage and spirited resistance of the other".
A spokeswoman for the Belfast Rape Crisis Centre criticised the application of the 50 per cent remission system to sentenced rape offenders.
After the court proceedings, a 23 year old victim of Clarke criticised the court, saying her "agony" didn't end with the attack or" her lucky escape from the house. It continued in court, she said, for "our justice system - where victims of rape attacks are concerned has to be experienced to be believed".