'Lifelong burglar' jailed for rape

A "lifelong burglar" who broke into a 60-year-old woman's flat and raped her was jailed for 12 years today.

Milton White, 46, of Camberwell, south-east London, was found guilty of attacking the woman more than two decades ago in May 1990.

She was asleep in her flat in Haringey, north London, when she woke to find the blankets on her bed being disturbed.

White was today found guilty by a jury at the Old Bailey of raping her and stealing £1,260 that she had earlier won at a casino.

He claimed that the woman had invited him in and they had consensual sex.

Passing sentence, Judge John Bevan QC said: "I'm bound to say that your attempt to sully this respectable woman's memory by making what the jury found, in pretty short order, to be a pathetic attempt to discredit her, is a pity.

"It's a shame that you did not have the courage to face up now to what you had done to her when she was alive."

He went on: "She was left terrified and shaky and repeatedly asked you not to kill her as you put your hand over her mouth."

White's first conviction at the age of 15 was for indecently assaulting another 60-year-old woman in the grounds of a hospital, and a 22-year-old woman in her own home on the same day.

He also has a string of convictions for burglary dating back to 1983, including stealing underwear from the female changing rooms of Streatham swimming pool and burgling women's rooms in an old people's home.

Calling him a "lifelong burglar", the judge told White he had some "pretty peculiar convictions for burglary".

White was sentenced to 12 years for rape, and to four years for burglary to run concurrently. He will be on the sex offenders' register for life.

In a victim impact statement, a friend of the woman said she was "never the same again" after the chilling attack, and became "withdrawn and a shadow of her former self".

"She was a confident, independent person and after the attack she was afraid to venture out at night," the friend said.

PA