A CONVICTED rapist who targets elderly women was arrested after he befriended an 80-year-old in a library and took her for a drink.
William Wayne Edwards, 45, admitted breaching his indefinite Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO), which bans him from approaching elderly women.
Edwards, previously jailed for 12 years for the rape of an 84-year-old woman, was yesterday remanded in custody pending sentence at Mold Crown Court in the New Year.
Prosecutor Justin Espie told Wrexham magistrates it was a deliberate and wilful breach by a man who targeted elderly women.
The SOPO was granted because he was effectively grooming another elderly woman, Mr Espie told the court.
Fortunately that matter was “nipped in the bud”, he added.
But on Tuesday staff at a library contacted police after Edwards had engaged a woman of 80 in conversation for some 45 minutes.
They then left and went to a local pub and they had a drink.
Police attended the premises in the Ruabon area and arrested Edwards. “This is a deliberate targeting of an elderly victim, seeking to befriend her and the only reason for that would have been to engage in a sexual relationship with her,” Mr Espie said.
Euros Jones, defending, said it was his client’s case that there was no such intention.
However, he fully accepted he had breached his SOPO and would not be seeking bail pending sentence.
District Judge Gerallt Jones said the case was so serious it could only be dealt with in the crown court.
The court heard that Edwards, who had recently been living at a guest house at Penybryn, Wrexham, had received a 12-year prison sentence at Caernarfon Crown Court in October 1992 for the rape of the 84-year-old woman.
Then in May 2002, he received a seven-year sentence for indecent assault on a woman aged 82.
He was later arrested after he was said to have engaged a woman aged 92 in conversation in Wrexham and was returned to custody for breaching his licence conditions.
North Wales Police applied for the SOPO to curb his future activities and it was granted in September 2010.
The order made by magistrates stipulates he must not approach or seek to approach or contact his two previous victims.
He is also banned from making any contact with any woman aged 65 or over, apart from the usual contact that would be unavoidable in every day life.