by Paul Hooper

A "pitiless and wicked" sex fiend was behind bars today - two years after being cleared of rape.

Businessman Gary Taylor, 44, was sentenced in his absence after being banished from the dock shouting his innocence.

Judge Simon James jailed Taylor for 12 years after ruling he posed a "significant" danger to women.

In April 2009, a jury at the Old Bailey in London found him not guilty of raping a 27-year-old university student.

A jury at Canterbury Crown Court heard that in April this year Taylor left his home in Wood Green, north London, looking to rent a flat in Thanet.

Taylor - high on cocaine and drink - forced his way into the home of a woman and "with a face like a raging bull" attacked her.

He was found guilty of entering a house as a trespasser with the intent to cause a sex offence and attempted rape.

The jury weren't told of the earlier court case, or that Taylor had instructed his lawyers to negotiate a plea bargain in the Ramsgate attack prior to his trial.

He claimed in the witness box that he thought his victim was a sex worker.
But Prosecutor Christopher May said the woman, who had only met Taylor earlier in the night of the attack, made it clear she was not interested in sex.

She would later tell the jury that as Taylor - who had forced his way into her home through an open window - tried to make her perform a sex act on him she preferred "to take a beating" rather than give in.

Two men who had been with Taylor earlier saw the break-in and flagged down a police car.

Police officers burst into the house and found Taylor - who had ambitions to work in film production - with his trousers down to his ankles.

Taylor, of no fixed address, had pleaded not guilty, claiming that when police arrived he was "negotiating with someone he thought was a sex worker".

He said he had been high on cocaine and alcohol when it happened and wrote a 10 page letter to the court about the attack.

But the judge rejected his claims and condemned him for using his barrister to make his victim undergo "vigorous" cross examination in order to blacken her character.

As he was being sentenced, Taylor - who was being watched by his mother and daughters - began shaking his head and shouting: "She manipulated me. I didn't use no violence."

He was ordered out of the dock and into the court cells, as the judge described the attack as "a pitiless and wicked crime on a vulnerable woman in her own home".