Vic man who raped two women in 1988 jailed
|
When Rodney Hampton saw a 16-year-old girl was limping barefoot on the street after she had stepped on broken glass he pulled over and offered her a lift.
The father-of-three then drove the teenager to some remote bush near Bendigo and raped her in March 1988.
“Don’t make things worse for yourself,” Hampton told the terrified girl as she struggled against him.
She thought he going was to kill her.
Two months earlier, Hampton followed a 20-year-old woman who had been out with friends in the northwest Victorian city.
He jogged past her and asked for the time before dragging her into a garden and raping her in the dead of night.
Hampton on Thursday faced the Victorian County Court and was jailed for a total of 11 years after pleading guilty to two counts of rape despite claiming that he had no memory of the incidents.
Judge Mark Dean described the attacks as abhorrent, opportunistic, predatory and cowardly and said the now 58-year-old man’s claim he could not remember what happened was false.
“You have finally been brought to justice … yet that fact cannot undo the trauma your offending caused to your victims,” Judge Dean told Hampton.
“The passage of 33 years does not moderate the gravity of your offending.”
Hampton must serve at least seven years and six months behind bars before being eligible for parole.
