Meadowhall rapist was scrounging Czech who sneaked into UK after murdering wife

Kajus Scuka, 48, raped a woman on her 54th birthday as she walked her dog in a park and groped the other victims offering them cash for sex.

He came to Sheffield in 2009 and was claiming £67-a-week Jobseekers allowance despite having served 11-and-a-half years of a 13-year sentence imposed in May, 1988 in his homeland for murder after stabbing his wife three times when they argued over his infidelity.

Scuka also has convictions in the Czech Republic for gross indecency, indecent assault and assaulting a woman with an axe for which he was jailed for three-and-a-half years.

The Sheffield attacks all happened within a two-mile radius of the city’s Meadowhall Shopping Centre between March, 2010 and May, 2011 and police did not even know he was in the country.

Jailing Scuka for life with a minimum term of 12 years at Sheffield Crown Court, Judge Peter Kelson told him: “I regard you as a very, very dangerous man.”

He said he was “unwilling to control his sexual urges and was a grave danger to women” and he would be recommending Scuka for deportation after he has served his sentence.

The judge said: “If there is ever such a day you are released in this country you should be deported. I have no doubt that the public will be terribly alarmed.

“It seems to me the case that even with your convictions for murder and assaults you were free to enjoy the same freedom of movement as any other European citizen.”

After the hearing, Det Sgt Ian Harding who led a cold case review team which snared Scuka said: “It is a concern that people of this nature move freely about the EU without any restriction.

“This man has been living in Sheffield since 2009 and we were not even aware of his presence.”

Police believed he returned home for brief periods by bus during his time in Sheffield. Det Sgt Harding said: “He claimed he came here looking for work but he hasn’t done any and just signed on.”

• More in Saturday’s Yorkshire Post