'Demon preacher' rapist told he may never walk free (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

'Demon preacher' rapist told he may never walk free

8:30am Thursday 12th January 2012 in Windhill By Jenny Loweth, T&A Reporter

A judge warned a “born again preacher” that he could die behind bars as he jailed him for life for a 30-year campaign of rape, brutality and sexual assault.

Brian Jackson must spend almost 13 years behind bars before his release can even be considered.

He will never be freed unless the Parole Board rule he is no longer a danger to women and men.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC told him: “If that means you spend the rest of your life in prison, then that is what you will do.”

Jackson, 50, of Hall Lane, Windhill, Shipley, who wore a plum-coloured sweatshirt, grey tracksuit bottoms and a silver cross round his neck, remained impassive as he was led to the cells at Bradford Crown Court yesterday.

He was sentenced after a jury convicted him of causing grievous bodily harm with intent by stabbing a former girlfriend when she gave her sister more potatoes than him.

On Tuesday the jury had found him guilty of raping three women, causing another actual bodily harm, indecently assaulting a fifth woman and sexually assaulting and attempting to rape a man.

During a harrowing trial, in which jurors were at times reduced to tears, Jackson’s traumatised victims relived the terror they suffered at his hands.

They recalled a “demon” and “an evil man” whose eyes bulged with rage as he beat, raped and sexually abused them.

Some said they kept the abuse secret because they felt dirty and ashamed.

Jackson, a large and powerful man, was a former member of the Territorial Army and a martial arts enthusiast.

He used his weight and strength to control, bully and dominate after a childhood in which he claimed he was sexually abused and witnessed regular domestic violence.

Judge Durham Hall told Jackson only a life sentence could protect women and men from the “most extreme harm” he posed.

He branded him “disturbed, violent, depraved and dangerous.”

“You were absolutely a brute and a bully who derived the most intense satisfaction from remorselessly beating and raping,” the judge told him.

Jackson “played out his depravity on the bodies of his victims”, Judge Durham Hall said.

The victims included four former partners, a mentally ill woman in-patient at Lynfield Mount Hospital and a young footballer brutalised and sexually attacked in his bedsit.

Jackson’s first victim, who met him when they were teenagers, was routinely beaten and raped. She was throttled with phone flex and hunted down when she moved house to escape him.

A second woman’s clothes were ripped off. She was beaten, raped and had her property damaged.

Another woman was raped when she ended the relationship and a fourth was bitten and knocked through a door.

The hospital patient was molested after Jackson lured her up a dirt track near Lynfield Mount and the man was slammed against a wall, his jeans were ripped and he was tied up and forced to commit a sex act.

Jackson claimed he was a born again preacher and the man was his disciple. Afterwards, he told him: “God made me do it.”

Judge Durham Hall noted that the victim’s life then “spiralled into a nightmare of drug abuse and other problems”.