A double rapist who gardai said would attack again if he was ever freed has been released from jail this morning.

Patrick 'Lolo' O'Driscoll (46) walked free shortly after 10am from the Midlands Prison having served over 10 years for his last attack.

He was 23 when he first raped, and spent from 1991 to March 2000 behind bars for that attack. But he raped again just six months later, leading to the sentence he finishes today.

Both attacks he was convicted of involved him ambushing women as they walked alone in his native Cork and then subjecting them to a sick ordeal.

In one case, he told a woman he would target her child if she didn't comply with his wishes before beating her savagely over the head with a rock.

A third woman narrowly escaped a similar fate when O'Driscoll stalked and attacked her in July 2001 while gardai were still investigating the second attack. Luckily for that victim her brother heard a noise and went to check what was wrong, and O'Driscoll fled.

When four gardai tried to arrest him in September 2000 he attacked them with a slash hook.

O'Driscoll, a member of the Travelling community from Coombe, Glenville, Co Cork, is said by sources to have been working-out constantly in the gym in the last few months.

His last victim said in recent times that she still sleeps with a baseball bat by her pillow.

The woman who was raped, brutalised and left with a fractured skull by O'Driscoll, said she lives in terror of his imminent release.

Such was the fear O'Driscoll instilled that women in north Cork wouldn't go out alone at night while he was loose.

However, one of his victims admitted that his release is the stuff of nightmares.

"I am dreading the day when he walks free. It is something I have feared for the past 10 years and we know that he will be out very soon," she said. "I am a totally different person today to what I was before the rape. It completely changed me.

"I was outgoing and confident. Now, I need to be surrounded by friends all the time.

"I won't go out alone at night. I won't ever walk alone. I sleep with a baseball bat by my pillow every night.

"I feel so badly let down by the justice system. Here is a man that has shown he is a danger to women and yet he will be able to start his life over again."

Irish Independent