Serial rapist Anthony Curran jailed

Jun 24 2009 by Sophie Doughty, The Journal

Victim believed she was about to die

TRAPPED in his Middlesbrough flat, Curran’s first rape victim thought she would die.

The predator was jailed for six years in 2002 after he was convicted of luring a former sex-worker to his home and raping her as he held a screwdriver to her neck.

Teesside Crown Court heard how Curran met the woman in the early hours of September 16, 2001, on Union Street in Middlesbrough.

They went back to his flat where he held the weapon to her throat and raped her twice. His victim, a former heroin addict, told the jury she had feared for her life during the ordeal and that Curran had warned her she might end up like murdered prostitute – Vicky Glass whose body was found on remote moorland in North Yorkshire.

She said: "He said he could do anything he wanted to me because I was a prostitute and a smackhead. I thought he was going to kill me."

Curran admitted having sex with the woman but denied it was rape. But he was convicted after a trial This was not the first time the predator had been accused of rape. In 2001 he was cleared of raping a 19-year-old girl, also at his flat in Gosford Mews.

This victim claimed he repeatedly attacked her after inviting her to wait for a taxi at his home on December 9, 2000.

But Curran, denied raping her, saying she agreed to come back for a drink and consented to sex.