Sex offender jailed for 'barbaric' attack on woman in 70s

Anthony Roberts carried out a "barbaric attack", Worcester Crown Court was told

A sex offender who stabbed and sexually assaulted a woman in her 70s has been jailed for more than 19 years.

Anthony Roberts, 56, of Green Hill, Worcester, repeatedly stabbed his victim beside the River Severn in the city in the early hours of 7 May.

West Mercia Police said the "incredibly violent attack" had "shocked the local community to the core".

It emerged at Roberts' sentencing hearing that he had been released five months earlier from a life sentence.

Worcester Crown Court heard he had served that sentence for attempting to murder a 16-year-old girl with a knife and wounding a woman aged 19 in an underpass in Rubery, near Birmingham, in 1990.

While sentencing Roberts to a minimum of 19 years and 3 months, Mrs Justice Ellenbogen said the circumstances of his release "were for others to examine".

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said a Serious Further Offence review was under way.

'Barbaric attack'

Roberts pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to attempted murder, assault by penetration and possession of a knife in a public place.

The judge said it had been a "barbaric attack" which had left his victim so traumatised "she has become confined to her home, unable to go out unaccompanied".

Prosecutor Raj Punia said: "What happened to her is every woman's worst nightmare.

"She said she thought she was going to die."

Roberts, who threw his victim's phone in the river, was arrested near the scene, the court heard, after a witness heard "deathly" screaming.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, the woman, who cannot be identified, said: "The injuries he inflicted are life-changing, but I refuse to let him impact me any more than absolutely necessary.

"This man tried to take my life but he failed. I will continue to live my life and get back to doing what I love."

The court was told Roberts has a chromosomal disorder and was diagnosed with an "untreatable" psychopathic personality disorder in 1993.

He had previous convictions dating back the 1980s.