A driving instructor has been found guilty this afternoon of raping a woman 26 years ago.

Martin Eke, 46, thought he had escaped justice for his stranger rape attack on Jacqui Spriddell in 1986.

After the rape, he fled Folkestone where he had worked as a shoe shop manager.

But Jacqui - who was 21 at the time - condemned him in a statement from beyond the grave.

A judge at Canterbury Crown Court ruled her words could be read to the jury - even though she died from renal failure 11 years ago.

They were enough to convince the jury that Eke, of Douglas Road, Tonbridge, carried out the rape on wasteland near Folkestone railway station.

The case was never solved and it was only in 2010 that Kent Police's cold case police officers looked into the attack again.

By then, they had Eke's DNA after he was arrested in 2005 for an attack on a lover when he was given a police caution.

That matched DNA taken from Jacqui's clothed, which had been stored since 1986.

Eke, (pictured above. Picture: Mike Gunnill) who denied the charge, claimed he had met a woman on the way home one evening and the two had consensual sex.

The jury rejected his claim. Eke will be sentenced tomorrow.