Serial rapist ‘was left at large’

A SERIAL rapist, who is serving life for the murder of a teenager, was left at large by police, prosecutors and the courts, according to a new documentary to be screened tonight.

The UTV Insight programme raises fresh and disturbing allegations about the life and crimes of Robert Howard, and how he evaded prison.

Howard, serving life for the murder of a teenage girl in England, was acquitted of killing Arlene Arkinson, the Tyrone girl who vanished in 1994 and whose body has never been found.

Attention has focused on warnings by a prison psychiatrist more than 30 years ago and on a 1995 psychologist’s report, compiled prior to his receiving a suspended sentence for attacking a 16-year-old girl.

A Limerick psychiatrist warned that Howard was a potential killer in 1973.

Dr David Dunne, 72, reported he was a “dangerous explosive psychopath” who had to be stopped.

Dr Dunne interviewed Howard in Limerick prison after he raped a middle-aged woman in Youghal, Co Cork. Howard broke into her home, bound and gagged her and repeatedly attacked her over a period of hours.

Dr Dunne said: “He was such a gentle, well-mannered person, but he was saying: ‘I do these terrible things and when I lose my temper I just get frustrated and can blow up and do anything’.”

Howard was only in his 20s, but by then he had already carried out two other sex attacks in England, on a six-year-old girl and a young married woman.

The psychiatrist feared Howard might even then have killed someone. He said: “I asked him if he had killed somebody and he said: ‘No’.

“But I had a question in my head that he may have because of the history and the impression he had on me of being such a dangerous person.” Dr Dunne felt that Howard was so dangerous that he should never have been released.

The judge who sentenced Howard after the vicious attack echoed Dr Dunne’s view that Howard was a dangerous psychopath.

Howard is serving life for the abduction and murder of 14-year-old Hannah Williams in the south of England in 2001.

However, the family of 15-year-old Arlene Arkinson have questioned whether police investigating her disappearance were aware of Dr Dunne’s report when they released Howard without charge in 1994.

Questions have also emerged about the 1995 psychiatrist’s report compiled as he was awaiting sentence for attacking a 16-year-old girl in Castlederg, Co Tyrone.

The report warned he would commit more serious crimes and had a strong desire to dominate teenage girls both sexually and physically.

He received a three-year sentence, suspended for five years.

UTV Insight Special - Under The Law will be screen tonight at 9pm.