YORK RAPIST MICHAEL DAVID JACKSON'S APPEAL REJECTED
MULTIPLE rapist, Michael David Jackson, has failed in a bid to clear his name on appeal.Jackson, 42, of Spalding Avenue, Clifton, York, was convicted of five rapes at the city’s Crown Court and jailed for a total of 15 years, with a further five to be spent on licence, in November 2008.
He urged three top judges yesterday to grant him permission to appeal against the jury’s verdicts, claiming his two victims had conspired against him and fabricated the allegations.
He said his convictions should be overturned as “unsafe”.
However, dismissing Jackson’s plea that he did not get a fair trial, Mr Justice Stadlen told London’s Criminal Appeal Court the trial judge had carefully warned the jurors to treat the women’s evidence with “particular caution”.
“The fact that they believed the women’s evidence, rather than Jackson’s, does not amount to a ground of appeal,” he added.
The court received a letter from Jackson’s mother, pointing to a newspaper report concerning a criminal conviction of one of the victim’s husbands, but said this too did not amount to a ground of appeal.
The attacks occurred between 1996 and 2006.
Jackson tried to strangle one of his targets with a baby’s romper suit and another attack happened when the victim called at his house, and he grabbed her, dragging her inside to rape her.
Jackson’s crimes began in 1988 when he was 20 and committed a sexual act against a 14-year-old girl.
The girl went shopping for milk and as she returned to the house where she was babysitting, he persuaded her to go into his house when he sexually attacked her.
The rapes had cost him his job and his accommodation and caused his family problems in their community.
Judge Peter Hunt, who sentenced Jackson, told him he was a “significant danger to women”.
