January 2012 Rapist struck again five days after being released from prison A serial rapist attacked a young woman five days after he was released from prison, a court heard yesterday. David Sutherland, 24, pinned his 19-year-old victim down and told her he had a knife. He fled after being startled by two women but was arrested nearby. He pleaded guilty to the Christmas Eve attempted rape and was jailed indefinitely for the public’s safety. A probation report had assessed Sutherland, who has convictions for sex offences including two rapes and four attacks on children, as “high risk”, Portsmouth crown court heard. But he was released last month after serving two thirds of a 10-year jail term. He was living in a bail hostel when he struck in Fareham, Hants. Judge Richard Price told him: “You may not be released for the rest of your life.” Hampshire Probation Trust is investigating how he was supervised. In prison, Sutherland had completed a sex offender’s course and an advanced sex offender’s course but nothing helped change his ways. HISTORY OF OFFENDING AT THE age of just 24 David Sutherland already has a long list of convictions for sexual offences. In December 2005 he was jailed for five-and-a-half-years at Winchester Crown Court. His first offence came in 2002, when he was 15, and he carried out a series of attacks before he was caught three years later. Sutherland was jailed for two counts of rape, two sexual assaults and four sexual offences. The victims included a girl as young as 12 up to a woman in her 40s. For each attack his method was usually the same. He would approach a girl or woman in a park, offer her money for sex and then force himself on her, often using violence. Five days after his release Sutherland struck again in the car park in Civic Centre Way, near Fareham Borough Council’s offices.