Ten-year jail term for rapist policeman

A POLICE officer was yesterday sentenced to 10 years in prison for two rapes and an indecent assault.

Mr Justice Hooper, sitting at Leeds Crown Court, told John Blott that pre-sentence reports had described him as "arrogant, egocentric and devoid of remorse". The judge said the report also said Blott was a dangerous man, especially to women, and there was a substantial risk that that would remain the case.

The judge said Blott, 33, a former Manchester City and Carlisle United goalkeeper, would not be eligible for parole until he had served five years of his sentence and he would recommend he should not be released until he had served at least two-thirds of it.

The judge said aggravating features of the case were the ages of the rape victims, who were 16 and 18. "You were a police officer, the victims trusted you and you abused that trust. You thought you could get away with what you were doing because you were a police officer."

Blott had been found guilty of two rapes and one indecent assault two weeks ago when a jury returned majority verdicts on the eighth day of the trial.

The police officer, of Redcar, Cleveland, was cleared of three charges of indecent assault. The judge has ordered one indictment of rape and three indecent assaults be laid on file.

The court heard that all the attacks took place after Blott met women during his work as a beat bobby in the Teesside area between 1993 and 1995.

His first victim was a 16-year-old college student whom he met in August 1993 when he was 28. He arranged a date and took her to his home where he raped her twice.

Blott met his next victim in November 1994 while he was on duty outside a band concert at Middlesbrough Town Hall. He arranged to take the 22- year-old for a drink but he drove to his home and indecently assaulted her.

The judge said the woman had been left frightened and humiliated by Blott. She had agreed to go out with him because she knew he was a policeman and she had been brought up to trust the police.

The final attack happened in March 1995 when Blott raped an 18-year-old garage receptionist twice in his living room leaving her "stunned, drained and utterly disgusted". The judge told Blott the young woman's distress in giving evidence was obvious to everyone in court.

During the trial prosecution Aidan Marron QC, described Blott as a liar with a "monumental sexual appetite". He regarded himself as "some kind of sexual Olympian" who turned violent when women resisted his advances.

Blott told the jury he could not count the number of women he had been out with. He admitted describing himself as a "handsome man with a wonderful body" who women were attracted to.

He often picked up women while he was out on the beat, abusing his position of trust.

His victims initially failed to report the attacks because they feared they would never be believed against the word of a policeman.