Colin Henderson jailed for raping three women in Melbourne
PEOPLE believed he was looking for a housemate, but it was something much more evil. He was looking for victims.
PEOPLE believed Colin Henderson was just looking for a housemate, but it was something much more evil.
As he trawled through advertisements from women looking for a housemate, he was looking for a rape victim.
Henderson, dubbed the “Rental Rapist”, was sentenced to at least 11 years in jail for raping three women at knifepoint in their Melbourne homes between 1981 and 1984.
Detectives reopened the cold cases in 2011 after Henderson’s fingerprints were recovered from wine glasses he used at the victims’ homes all those years earlier.
Henderson, now 65, went to the first victim’s home in November 1981 to look at a room.
He took two bottles of wine and told the potential housemate he just wanted to get to know her better.
She rejected his advances and he thrust a knife to her throat and said “keep quiet or those could be your last words”.
She was then raped in the bedroom.
The Victorian County Court heard the British man then apologised to the victim and claimed he didn’t know what came over him.
Again, just six months later, he raped another unsuspecting woman after answering her ad for a housemate.
He attacked her as her three-year-old son slept in another room.
Henderson claimed his third victim in June 1984 in her South Melbourne home.
He asked to sleep in front of the fire because he was too drunk to drive home.
The rapist had earlier bought two bottles of wine when he went to inspect the room, just as he did with his first victim.
He then raped the 30-year-old woman and then told her “no hard feelings”.
The court heard Henderson was married and had three children.
Victorian County Court judge Paul Lacava said the victims had been subjected to rapes of the worst kind in their own homes.
“This kind of offending was every woman’s worst nightmare,” he said.
The Herald Sun reports Henderson told a psychologist he was drinking up to one litre of whiskey a day during the years of the attacks and said he didn’t remember them.
Henderson was charged when police discovered the fingerprints on the wine glasses matched prints British police had on file after charging the man for drink driving.
Henderson pleaded guilty to six charges of rape and indecent assault and was jailed for 15 years with an 11-year non parole period.
He was due to be sentenced earlier this year but was too sick to attend court, and underwent emergency surgery for an abdominal aortic aneurysm while in custody.
“I can’t say with any degree of certainty that you will die in prison but I recognise that you may,” Judge Lacava told him.
Henderson left Australia in the mid 1990s and was living in England when he was arrested in June 2014.