A double rapist who was caught by DNA when he urinated in a neighbour's plant pot three decades after the attacks has been jailed for 23 years.

Eric McKenna's brutal assaults on two lone women who had been walking home in the 1980s remained unsolved until a breakthrough by cold case detectives.

Married dad McKenna, of Newcastle, whose daughter was born three days after the first rape, was involved in a row with a neighbour in 2016.

After urinating in her garden plant pot, he was cuationed, and the 60-year-old's DNA was taken.

Police then linked the scaffolder's sample to the rapes carried out in 1983 and 1988.

Eric McKenna, who was jailed for 23 years for the rapes he carried out in 1983 and 1988

The match, which was a 'billion to one' chance of it not being McKenna or his close relative, led to his arrest.

But despite the evidence, McKenna, who had no brothers, denied two charges of rape claiming 'the DNA is not mine.'

During the trial Andrew Espley told Newcastle Crown Court: 'This case concerns two very similar, violent stranger rapes, carried out on lone women walking home, around here, at night, back in 1983 and 1988.

“These are very, very serious rapes indeed.'

The court heard the first victim was attacked in May 1983, when she was 21-years-old, after she had been at a party in Gateshead.

In a statement to police she said she had been appraoched by a stranger who put his arm around her neck and his hand over her mouth, then telling her had a knife.

He then raped her, with her head covered in her own t-shirt and jacket, after forcing her to strip naked.

He then gave her money for her bus fare home but warned: “If you go to the cops I know who you are and where you drink.”

Jurors were also told that the woman suffered 'appalling treatment' when she reported her ordeal, as she was kept waiting for 15 minutes to be seen, asked if she was gay, and told to 'go home and forget about it.'

The second attack which happened five years later, in March 1988, had “marked similarities” to the first.

The court heard the second victim, who was 18, had been walking home from a night out and was approached by a stranger in Newcastle city centre.

McKenna was sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court today (pictured)

The man had offered to show the woman a “short cut” then dragged her into a deserted yard and raped her at knifepoint after threatening to, ‘Cut her legs and cut her breasts off’ if he did not do what she said and if she did not ‘enjoy it’.

The court heard, once again, the woman was stripped naked and her own jacket was held over her head while she was raped.

She was hit in the face after she started crying.

The woman was left to collect pieces of her own clothing from the ground before she made her way to a city police station.

Mr Espley told jurors: “The same DNA from the same man was found at both incidents.

“As you will hear later, DNA from the man who attacked both women is the same as Mr McKenna’s.”

McKenna was arrested in April last year and denied both attacks.

He told detectives he got married in 1982 and his daughter was born in May 1983, three days after the first rape was committed.

McKenna said since he had been married he had not had sex with anyone other than his wife.

Mr Espley told jurors: “He said the DNA cold be wrong, we say it can’t, because it’s science.

“It’s like saying this glass doesn’t hold any water, when it does.”

Judge Edward Bindloss sentenced McKenna to a total of 23 years behind bars.

The judge said the attacks were “unusual” and “both violent” and have affected both women for the rest of their lives.

Jackie Wilkinson of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: 'Eric McKenna evaded justice for two brutal rapes for over 30 years.

'By piecing together the new forensic evidence with information from the original investigations, the CPS built an overwhelming case against him.'

Detective Constable Mick Wilson said McKenna 'did not flinch' when he was challenged over the rapes.

He said: 'I am delighted to be stood here today knowing that this man is now behind bars.

"In the 1980s we did not have the same forensic techniques available that we do now and we have secured a conviction thanks to those developments.

"McKenna thought he had got away with his crimes but a neighbourly dispute and a moment of stupidity has landed him in prison for 23 years."