Sex attacker who repeatedly knifed pensioner handed life for ‘barbaric’ attack

A court has heard a serial sex offender who tried to kill a pensioner in a barbaric riverside knife attack had been freed after a warning he posed an imminent risk of “serious injury and potentially death”.

Anthony Roberts was jailed for life with a minimum term of 19 years and three months on Tuesday by a judge who said the circumstances of the 56-year-old’s release “were for others to examine”.

The court was told Roberts was shirtless when he repeatedly stabbed a woman aged in her 70s beside the River Severn in Worcester in the early hours of May 7.

It emerged at Roberts’ sentencing hearing that he had been released five months earlier from a life sentence for attempting to murder a 16-year-old girl with a knife and wounding a woman aged 19 in an underpass in Rubery, near Birmingham, in 1990.

He also has numerous previous convictions dating back to 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985, including sexual and indecent exposure offences involving a child, a teenager and a woman using a phone box.

Opening the facts of the latest offence, prosecutor Raj Punia said the victim was walking home when she felt an arm cross her throat, before a “sustained, ferocious and brutal” attack including a sexual assault.

“What happened to her is every woman’s worst nightmare,” Ms Punia said. “She said she thought she was going to die.”

Roberts, who threw his victim’s phone in the river, was arrested near the scene, the court heard, after a witness heard “deathly” screaming.

The victim, who cannot be identified, read a victim impact statement to the court explaining the impact of dozens of injuries she suffered, many of which came within millimetres of causing death.

The woman, referred to in court as Ms A, fought back tears as she addressed the court and Roberts, who was listening via a prison video-link.

She said: “If he were ever allowed out again to wander amongst the community, I would find it impossible to leave my home, becoming someone afraid to walk outside or even open the door.

“I do not want this man to have a lasting impact on me, but I know he has.

“The injuries he inflicted are life-changing, but I refuse to let him impact me any more than absolutely necessary.

“This man tried to take my life but he failed. I will continue to live my life and get back to doing what I love.”

Roberts pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to attempted murder, assault by penetration and possession of a knife in a public place.

The court was told Roberts, of Green Hill, Worcester, has a chromosomal disorder and was diagnosed with an “untreatable” psychopathic personality disorder in 1993.

Passing sentence, Mrs Justice Ellenbogen said she had read six parole assessment reports written in 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2021.

The final report in May 2021, the judge said, found that Roberts – who absconded from prison in 2019 – posed a risk of harm specific to females aged 16-30 and of “serious injury and potential death of any female victim”.

“She (the report’s author) assessed the risk as imminent and high,” the judge added.

Ordering that her sentencing remarks be sent to the Secretary of State for Justice, the chair of the Parole Board and the Lord Chancellor, the judge told Roberts: “The circumstances in which you were released will be for others to examine.

“You gratuitously degraded Ms A by removing her clothes.

“You committed the offence while on licence and under the influence of alcohol.

“As a result of your barbaric attack she has become confined to her home, unable to go out unaccompanied.”

Commenting after the case at Worcester Crown Court, Detective Chief Inspector Gareth Lougher said: “This was an incredibly violent attack on an innocent woman, which shocked the local community to the core.

“Thankfully, the victim survived, but her road to mental and physical recovery will be a long one. The outcome could have been very different.

“I’d like to commend her on the courage she has shown in helping us to bring her attacker to justice.

“I have no doubt that the mental impact of this attack will haunt the victim for the rest of her life, but I hope that today’s sentence will allow her to begin to move forwards.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “This was a despicable crime and our heartfelt sympathies are with the victim and their family.

“A Serious Further Offence review is underway to establish the full facts of the case and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.”