Febuary 2006 Murder suspect was convicted triple child rapist The prime suspect in the murder of Polish care worker Karolina Mikolajewska was a triple rapist. Clive Hayes, 54, served more than 20 years in jail before being released from Leyhill Open Prison in 1999. He went on the run after police named him as someone they wanted to question in connection with the murder when his car crashed and exploded in flames. A High Court judge is to hold an investigation into why Hayes was let out of the open prison. Avon and Somerset police have so far refused to confirm whether the man who died in the incident in Thornbury was the suspect being hunted for the murder of 20-year-old Karolina. ‘Degraded women’ Her body was discovered at a flat rented by Hayes in Patchway. She had been battered to death. Clive Hayes has a record of sex crimes. In 1973 he was jailed for five years after admitting raping two 14-year-old girls in Leeds. In 1976, five months after his early release he was handed a life sentence after being convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl at knifepoint. When Hayes was jailed for life at Leeds the trial judge, Mr Justice Boreham, told him: “You have degraded a clean young woman.” After his release, Hayes went to live in Awkley near Olveston and the parole board responsible for the decision to release him has said it will be holding an urgent review headed by a High Court judge into why Hayes was allowed out into the community after serving 23 years.