Vicious sex attacker jailed

Jane Hunt

A VICIOUS sex attacker who dragged two women into playing fields and subjected them to terrifying ordeals during which he repeatedly hit them about the head and raped them within minutes of each other has been locked up indefinitely.

The two victims, one aged 30 and the other a 26-year-old mother-of-two, faced 21-year-old Christopher Armstrong across a courtroom yesterday and heard a judge brand him a danger to women and describe his attacks on them as “horrific, vicious, frenzied and terrifying.”

Ipswich Crown Court heard that the first victim was so badly beaten that flesh from her injuries was found in her hair.

She had met Armstrong earlier in the evening at a pub in Brandon and had agreed when he volunteered to walk with her to make sure she got home safely, said Lindsay Cox, prosecuting.

On the way he said he wanted to show her a den he and his cousin had made when they were children and had led her into a park.

Once there he had suddenly struck her over the head and thrown her to the ground before raining a succession of blows on to her face, arms and legs.

At one stage he hit her on the head with one of her boots and the more she screamed the more he struck her, said Mr Cox.

Armstrong had then put his hand round her throat and removed all her clothes apart from her socks while continuing to strike her.

“It reached the stage when she decided she would feign death if that's what it took to get him to stop hitting her,” said Mr Cox.

He had then forced her to perform a sex act on him and said he would kill her if she didn't.

When Armstrong put his fingers in her mouth to stop her screaming the woman had bitten them.

Shortly afterwards he had asked her why she wasn't fighting back and said that if she didn't ask him to stop he would continue hitting her until he killed her.

Eventually Armstrong had left after telling the woman that if she reported the incident he would kill her.

She had staggered to a nearby pub covered in blood and a barmaid described there being so much blood she could physically smell it.

The woman was taken to hospital and was found to have multiple facial injuries, black eyes, a bite mark on her forehead and bruising to her arms and thighs.

In a victim statement the woman said she was now scared to go out at night and felt she was serving a life sentence as a result of the attack.

She said she was conscious of scarring to her face, arms and legs and until recently she hadn't been able to see properly out of one eye.

The second victim was grabbed from behind by Armstrong within minutes of the first attack, as she walked home from the same pub in the early hours of the morning.

He had pushed her onto a playing field through a gap in the fence and had repeatedly hit her and bit her on the cheek and shoulders.

During her ordeal anxious friends rang her mobile phone 21 times and Armstrong told her the more her phone rang the more he would punch her.

He had then pinned her down and tried to remove her trousers before forcing her to perform a sex on him and indecently touching her.

He had then taken the woman's mobile phone before running off laughing, said Mr Cox.

The woman was found staggering down a footpath by some of her friends. She was later found to have a bite mark on her cheek, a swollen wrist and hand, bruising and swelling to her face and abrasions to her shoulders, buttocks and thighs.

In a victim statement the second woman said the attack had left her feeling “angry, dirty, violated and humiliated” and described suffering from flashbacks and difficulty in sleeping.

Armstrong had been arrested at his home in Brandon several hours after the attacks and was found to have numerous scratches on his body, swollen knuckles and injuries to his genital area where one of the women had tried to fight him off.

He later claimed the first woman had asked him to have rough sex with her and said the second woman had taken him to the playing field and he had kneed her in the face after she hurt him while performing a sex act on him.

Armstrong, of West Drive, Brandon, admitted two offences of rape and was given an indeterminate jail sentence for public protection and told he would have to serve five years and 126 days before he could be considered for parole. He would only then been released when he was no longer considered a danger.

He was ordered to sign on the sex offenders register, banned from ever making contact with his two victims and banned from working with children.

Sentencing him Judge David Goodin said the attacks were “horrific, vicious, frenzied and terrifying”.

“It is to be hoped that your victims may in the years ahead with the love and support of their families and those dear to them come to terms with what you did to them. Their recovery will be slow and certainly they will never forget these sustained attacks,” he said.

“You are without doubt a most dangerous young man.”

Robert O'Sullivan said Armstrong had been drinking on the night in question and by pleading guilty to the offences had saved his two victims reliving their ordeal by giving evidence in court.

He said Armstrong, who had two children, had found it hard to accept what he had done and had expressed remorse for the impact the offences had had on his victims.