A pensioner has been jailed after pleading guilty to an attempted rape 29 years ago.
Shaking uncontrollably, 71-year-old Charles Heaver showed no emotion when Judge Keith Cutler sentenced him to six years in prison. The Parkinson's sufferer was also placed on the sex offenders register for life.
When passing sentence, Judge Cutler branded Heaver, from Inkpen Road, Newbury, as “vicious, violent and depraved”. Heaver appeared at Winchester Crown Court on Friday, February 11, after pleading guilty in December last year.
He was charged with attempted rape in July 2010 following a case review by Hampshire Constabulary’s Operation Galaxy team, which investigates unsolved historic 'stranger rape' cases from 1980 committed in the county.
The court heard Heaver sexually assaulted a 22-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in a wooded area near a path off Wallis Road, Kings Furlong, on February 15, 1982.
Kerry Maylin, prosecuting, told the court the victim had left her Cranbourne home to meet with friends for a drink at The Bounty pub on Council Road.
On her way she met a man, believed to be Heaver, who approached her saying that a woman had been raped nearby.
Putting the man’s warnings to one side, she continued to the pub, where she stayed for the evening.
She left pub after closing time. But as she walked home along a footpath from Fairfields to Cranborne she was attacked.
The woman was grabbed from behind, a hand put over her mouth and she was dragged at the waist into undergrowth where her head was smashed against a tree stump knocking out her teeth and breaking her jaw.
He then attempted to rape her. After he ran off, residents were alerted by the victim's distraught screams.
Heaver was questioned days later over the attack, but his wife provided him with an alibi, saying he was with her on the night of the attack.
Heaver was arrested last year when the Galaxy team matched a DNA profile on police file with a semen sample taken from inside the victim’s tights.
Abigail Husbands, defending, told the judge that Heaver’s current ill health and his early guilty plea should be taken into account when sentencing.
In summing up, Judge Cutler told Heaver: “She has come to terms with it but her husband talks about how she still wakes up in the night. She never saw your face but sometimes she must of thought that every man could have been the man who did that to her.”
Speaking after the sentencing, Detective Julian Venner, who led the police’s Galaxy team, said: “The sentence passed today signifies the end of a long and complex investigation, and is indicative of the hard work and dedication shown by the officers and staff involved.
"More importantly, it also signifies an important milestone for the victim, who has endured almost 30 years of having to come to terms with this horrendous crime, and we are very grateful for her cooperation and support in bringing this man to justice.”
