July 2009 Sex attacker fails to cut life sentence
TOP judges have told a York serial sex offender who believed he had escaped justice after committing a brutal sex attack that his life sentence was “completely correct and appropriate”. Steven Mark Sellars, of Barkston Grove, York, lived a life of apparent normality for more than a decade after confronting a terrified young University of York student walking home in April 1996. The Court of Appeal was told the 42-year-old grabbed his victim by the hair and dragged her into a copse, where his attempts to rape her were thwarted by passers-by alerted by her screams. Mr Justice Holman, dismissing his appeal against sentence, said the woman fought back desperately as Sellars tried to pin her to the ground, biting his hand despite his punching her to the throat to stifle her screams. He fled as passers-by came to her aid, but punched her to the head before leaving the scene. Sellars, who was 29 at the time of the attack, was jailed for life at York Crown Court in December last year after admitting attempted rape. The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, declared he was so dangerous that he must be kept behind bars, despite pleas from his wife and relatives, including children, that the serial sex criminal had reformed himself into a law-abiding family man in the years since the attack. Mr Justice Holman said the case had taken 12 years to reach court because it was only last year that his DNA was matched to the victim in an unrelated police matter. In the meantime, he had wed and raised two children, said the judge, adding: “All the appearances are that he has been a good husband to his wife and a good father to his children”. But, behind the facade of domestic normality, Sellars had amassed a DVD porn collection featuring “films predominantly related to rape and fantasies concerning rape”, said the judge. The crown court judge had taken this material into account when deciding that Sellars was still highly dangerous and a threat to women. His taste for violent porn reflected a previous appalling history of sex crimes, the court heard – including two indecent assaults dating from 1986 and a subsequent rape conviction. One offence of indecent assault – of which he was convicted in 1989 – involved an attack on a woman walking home late at night who was dragged into woodland at knifepoint. Sellars’ legal team claimed the life-term was not justified given his law-abiding conduct in the intervening years. But Mr Justice Holman said: “Every word of the remarks of the sentencing judge were fully justified. This was a completely correct and appropriate sentence.”