October 2009 Serial rapist/paedophile jailed indefinitely A serial rapist who was released halfway through a 14-year sentence went on to subject another women to a horrifying attack in Hull. Stephen Mellors, 48, has attacked and raped schoolgirls and young women in the area over a 30-year period. The predator’s pattern of offending has seen him befriend his victims before dragging them to secluded areas and raping them. He has committed four rapes and three indecent assaults on strangers since 1981. Mellors was released after eight years of a 14-year sentence for rape following a change in the law. The change in 2005 allowed offenders to walk free after serving half their sentence, instead of the two-thirds they previously had to. Mellors, of Denaby Court, off Holderness Road, east Hull, has finally been given an indefinite sentence after a jury at Hull Crown Court convicted him of two rapes on a 24-year-old woman in the city centre. Helen Moore, of Hull Rape Crisis, said the criminal justice system let his women down. She said: “He is a predator and a very dangerous man. “He was not going to stop. What he has done is horrific. “I think the judicial system has let these women down. The sentence is great but it is somewhat belated. “I think something needs to be done about this. “These women went through trials to get him locked up so he couldn’t do it again and here they are, persistently releasing him.” Retired Detective Chief Superintendent Geoff Ogden told the Mail that the law needs to be reviewed. “It is unfair for the victims and the public,” he said. “The prisoners need to show a willingness to amend their ways to secure early release, not get it automatically. “The Parole Board should have ultimate control over the decision to release prisoners, it should never be automatic. “This man should not have been released because of a law that kicks in automatically. Mellors was serving his 14-year sentence for a rape on a Hull teenager in Hull in August 1995. He was sentenced in 1997 but was released in 2005. He attacked his latest victim after she left Propaganda, in Hull city centre in the early hours of January 16 this year. Mellors took her to an alleyway behind the Owner Hotel, on Albion Street, where he raped her twice shouting: “Whose the Daddy”. He was caught by his dandruff in the woollen hat he left at the scene. His 24-year-old victim took it to the police and he was caught by DNA evidence. Judge Roger Thorn QC has sentenced Mellors to indefinite imprisonment for public protection. He will not be eligible for parole for eight years. He told Mellors: “You may never be eligible for release.”