Junior Chester Bryan was handed a 29-year extended sentence (Picture: Cleveland Police/PA)

A ‘depraved and dangerous’ pimp who subjected eight women and girls to a horrific campaign of physical and sexual violence has been handed a 29-year extended sentence.

During a reign of terror spanning two decades, Junior Chester Bryan got some hooked on hard drugs so they would be dependent on him and lived off the earnings of those he forced into prostitution.

Bryan subjected others to brutal rapes – both for his own gratification and to teach them a lesson – and forced one vulnerable teenager to dig her own grave after launching a vicious hammer attack.

The 63-year-old was convicted of 20 offences and admitted three more, including rape, sexual assault, false imprisonment, living on prostitution and supplying class A drugs. All occurred between 1993 and 2013 and took place in Middlesbrough, Leeds, Darlington and London.


Bryan raped schoolgirls and gave another victim a cannabis joint laced with heroin to get her addicted to hard drugs (Picture:PA)

Judge Howard Crowson sentenced him to 24 years in jail, with an extended five-year tariff, having determined he was dangerous.



He told Bryan he had destroyed the lives of the young women in order to fulfil his own selfish desires.

The court heard Bryan, who moved to London from Jamaica when he was 15, was violent, domineering and manipulative.

He came to Middlesbrough in the 1990s and used his force of personality and violence to intimidate his victims, forcing some into prostitution.

Bryan raped two teenagers in his bedsit and gave another victim a cannabis joint laced with heroin so she became dependent on it, and him.

An older mugshot of Bryan from 2005 (Picture: PA)

One victim met him in a nightclub when she was 18 and had never tried any hard drugs before.

But within a year she was addicted to both crack and heroin and had become a prostitute under his control.

Home Secretary Priti Patel wrote to Cleveland Police in praise of their investigation, saying: ‘You should all be very proud of your achievements in uncovering and successfully bringing forward charges in these cases.’

After sentencing, Superintendent Mick Hunt from the Historic Investigation Unit (HIU) said: ‘Junior Chester Bryan is a depraved and dangerous individual and I want to praise the victims in this case for having the bravery and strength to come forward and endure the trial.’

Assistant Chief Constable Lisa Orchard praised the HIU saying: ‘They can be very proud of the work that they have carried out and for them to receive personal thanks from the Home Secretary is a real honour.’

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