http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/6255231.stm



A convicted rapist has been jailed for life for the kidnap and rape of a girl of 15 from north Wales last October.

Alan Grant, also known as Alan Weston, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, had been jailed in 1991 for 12 years for raping a woman in her West Sussex home.
Grant, 49, forced the girl into his van in Wrexham and subjected her to a 15-hour "horrendous" ordeal.
He pleaded guilty at Mold Crown Court and the judge recommended that he should serve at least seven years.
Greater Manchester probation service said Grant had finished a supervision order after his first conviction for rape around six weeks before he abducted and raped the 15-year-old girl.
The teenager was snatched near Summerhill Road in the Highfield area of Wrexham on Friday 20 October.







She was simply walking down the street when she was snatched off it and the nightmare began

Judge Stephen Clarke
She was threatened with a machete, tied up and driven to a secluded spot.
After raping the teenager, Grant drove for another hour before attempting to rape her again.
She was eventually freed 70 miles (113km) away in Bangor
Police were alerted by a member of the public who said the girl was being forced into a van.
Judge Stephen Clarke told Grant: "Your behaviour certainly manifests quite clearly a perverted, what might be called psychopathic, tendency.
"If you are at large you are likely to remain a danger to women for an indefinite period of time."






North Wales Police praised help from forces in northern England
Grant has a history of violent sexual offending.
He had been jailed for 12 years in 1991 after raping a woman having beaten her husband and locked him in a cupboard at their home in West Sussex.
He committed the rape, dubbed the "Straw Dogs attack" after a film in which a similar incident occurred, after escaping from Stafford Prison, where he had been serving five years for burglary.
Grant broke into the couple's cottage wearing a mask and armed with a pump-action shotgun, then tied up the man before raping his 26-year-old wife.
The most recent offences led to a police operation involving six UK police forces.







This man got what he deserves and we have now got to try to help my daughter to get on with her life

Girl's father
At the time police said the girl had undergone a "horrendous" ordeal before being found.
Judge Clarke praised her courage during the "nightmare".
He said: "She showed remarkable courage in what must have been a terrifying ordeal, and one can only hope that gradually the memory of this will fade, but I imagine it will remain with her for a long, long time.
"She was simply unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"She was simply walking down the street when she was snatched off it and the nightmare began."
'Team effort'
The girl's family are all still receiving counselling.
Her father said in a statement that his daughter had undergone a "very traumatic experience" and was still suffering flashbacks.
"It's been a very bad time for us and we're glad it's all over. This man got what he deserves, and we have now got to try to help my daughter to get on with her life.
"This has certainly brought us closer as a family - we all do a lot more together."
North Wales Police's deputy chief constable Clive Wolfendale paid tribute to "a magnificent team effort" which led to Grant's capture and conviction.
"This was, in every respect, detective work of the highest calibre. We are also very grateful to police forces across the north of England who helped in the arrest."

Where were HIS role models?