Serial rapist is jailed indefinitely for public protection

Lawrence Dugbazah, 27, of Peckham, south London, targeted young women walking home in the early hours.

Recorder Sally O’Neill QC, at Southwark Crown Court, told illegal immigrant Dugbazah: “I have taken into account the terrifying nature of these attacks, the lasting harm done by your actions, and that they took place over a very short period of time.”

The judge said that if she had not been passing an indefinite sentence, she would have passed one of 18 years, half of which Dugbazah would have spent in custody, minus 440 days he has already served.

The court has heard that Dugbazah dragged his victims to the ground and put his hand in their mouths to stop them screaming.

He pleaded guilty to raping a 19-year-old in Bloomsbury on January 9 last year.

He was arrested for an unrelated fraud matter on March 11 last year, but a DNA link to the attack was not made until March 23.

By then he had attacked two more women, one on March 13 and another on March 21. He was arrested on March 25.

Dugbazah was found guilty at the Old Bailey in April of the attempted rape and sexual assault of the woman in the second attack, and rape in the third attack.

Dugbazah posed a high risk of further sexual offending, the court heard.