COUNTY DURHAM SEX OFFENDER SENTENCED TO LIFE FOR RAPE AND VIOLENT ATTACKS
The article reports that Keith Lupton, 46, has been convicted of raping a woman who was asleep in her own bed at her home in County Durham, taking advantage of her drunken state.The incident occurred when Lupton entered her home, and he raped her while she was unconscious.
The jury at Durham Crown Court convicted Lupton of the rape following a four-day trial.
The court was unaware that Lupton had a previous violent attack on another woman in 1995, after posing as a taxi driver.
In that earlier incident, Lupton, of Hepscott Avenue, Blackhall, near Peterlee, County Durham, picked up his 45-year-old victim outside a pub in Hartlepool, drove her to an industrial site, and forced her to perform a sex act before attempting to rape her.
For these offences, he received a six-year jail sentence.
Recently, Lupton was involved in other violent behavior; in August of the same year, he visited a flat in Peterlee where the latest victim and her 23-year-old niece lived.
They went out to a pub and bought alcohol, returning to the flat when the woman was drunk and sleeping.
She awoke to find Lupton on top of her.
She shouted at him to leave, and he went into her niece’s bedroom.
The following day, she found his clothes in her room and ordered him out, subsequently reporting him to the police.
Lupton was arrested and claimed he had mistaken her room for his niece's, but the jury did not believe his explanation.
During sentencing, Judge Christopher Prince described Lupton as a dangerous offender, sentencing him to an indeterminate term with a minimum of five years to serve.
The judge also ordered Lupton to be placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for life and warned he could face a lifetime in prison if he remained a danger to women.
