by Jenny Loweth T&A Reporter A rapist who fled oversees for a decade was today starting a five-year jail sentence.

James Rhule jumped bail and escaped to his native Ghana to consult witch doctors about his health, a Court heard.

He came back to the UK in May, 2008 and was arrested in Milton Keynes in October last year.

Rhule, 55, pleaded guilty to raping a 26-year-old woman at his flat in Parsonage Road, Laisterdyke, Bradford, on May 2, 1999.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC branded it “rape in its truest, stereotypical form”. “It was a powerful man forcing himself on her, violently and callously, and showing no affection, and leaving her soiled, abused, completely degraded and distressed,” he said.

Prosecutor Kitty Taylor told Bradford Crown Court yesterday Rhule was arrested shortly after the rape.

But he disappeared after he was granted bail.

Miss Taylor said Rhule’s victim, now 38, was vulnerable and had worked as a prostitute. Rhule was attracted to her but she wanted only friendship.

She had consensual sex with him once and he sent her out to work as a prostitute when she owed him money.

She was sleeping on the living room floor at his flat when Rhule grabbed her, pinned her down and raped her. She immediately called the police.

Miss Taylor said the woman felt “dirty, disgusted and extremely vulnerable.”

“Her life has been on hold in the decade since this event,” Miss Taylor said.

After the hearing, Detective Sergeant Richard Smith, of West Yorkshire Police Homicide and Major Enquiry Team, said: “I hope that the conviction and sentence of James Rhule allows his victim to move on.

“Let this be a lesson to sex offenders that wherever they go in the world, and however long they attempt to evade justice, we will never stop searching for them. We will find them and bring them to justice.”