Match.com rapist Jason Lawrance guilty of more attacks Published duration 31 July 2019

image copyright Derbyshire Police image caption Jason Lawrance was accused of nine charges

A serial rapist who met his victims through a dating website has been found guilty of attacking five more women.

Jason Lawrance, 54, met the women on Match.com and Dating Direct between 2009 and 2014, raping them at their home, in his car or back of his van.

A jury at Nottingham Crown Court found him guilty of seven charges.

'Still fertile. Sorry'

During the trial, one victim described how she had only agreed to have sex with him because he told her he had had a vasectomy.

He texted her the next day to say "I'm still fertile. Sorry." She became pregnant and had to have an abortion.

The jury decided this counted as rape - the first time, the prosecution believe, a person has been prosecuted for the offence because of lying over a vasectomy.

media caption Convicted rapist Lawrance was a keen amateur boxer

The jury unanimously found him guilty on five charges of rape, one charge of sexual assault and a further charge of assault by penetration.

His middle-aged victims, from Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and Suffolk, came forward after nationwide coverage of his previous trial.

'Shut up, it's going to happen anyway'

One woman told the court how while having sex in his car he had tied a belt around her neck and started tightening it because it would 'help him finish', and did not stop when she asked until she was in tears.

In another, he came to a woman's house saying he needed to use the toilet - but then forced himself on her in her own front room, telling her to "shut up... it's going to happen anyway".

Clive Stockwell, prosecuting, finished his case by saying either all the women who had come forward were "wicked liars" willing to deceive the court, police and in some cases their partners with no clear motive, or Lawrance - already a convicted rapist - was guilty.

He also suggested Lawrance, who had offered no defence, refused to give evidence because he wanted to stay "in control".

image copyright Derbyshire Police image caption Lawrance used Match.com with profile names such as KeepItStraightToday and StraightMan—Looking

'Large sweaty man'

Lawrance's lawyer David Emanuel had argued that perhaps the women had "reinterpreted" what happened to them after seeing he was a rapist because they had regretted what might have been "awful" sex with a "large sweaty man".

He pointed to inconsistencies in their accounts and asked the jury if they could be sure of what happened, given pieces of evidence, such as text messages, had gone missing over the years.

"He might, just might, be not guilty," Mr Emanuel had said.

In the end the jury found him not guilty of two charges of rape.

The father-of-three, previously of Hinckley, Leicestershire and Hampshire, is due to be sentenced on 3 October.