A SEX fiend has been jailed for life for putting two couples through a terrifying ordeal as well as separate attacks on two prostitutes.

A judge told 35-year-old Daniel Owen that he agreed with a description of what happened as being "the manifestation of pure evil".

Judge Warwick McKinnon recommended Owen serve 10 years before being considered for parole.

The judge had earlier this year branded Owen a "highly dangerous man" after he was convicted of brutally trying to rape a prostitute and robbing another in Medway.

The case ended on March 19 but could not be reported until now because Owen was facing a second trial involving two couples, who were stripped and the women repeatedly raped after he burst into their flat armed with a knife.

The agony of the victims was prolonged because they were forced to give evidence twice, after a jury failed to reach verdicts at the first trial.

On Monday Owen, of Valley Drive, Gravesend, was convicted of four charges of rape, four of false imprisonment and one of indecent assault.

PC Mick Patterson, the officer in charge of the Medway case, welcomed the results. He said: "I have no doubt he would have struck again."

Maidstone Crown Court heard at the earlier trial how Owen tried to rape one prostitute and rob another of money he had paid her.

The first girl was working in Rochester on May 22 last year when Owen pulled up in a van and requested a sex act for £40. But when they arrived at her flat, he beat her over the head repeatedly with an electric heater and tried to rape her. She eventually managed to escape and call the police.

About six weeks later on August 6, Owen was driving the same van in the area when he approached another prostitute. He hit her in the face and snatched back the money he had paid her.

The first victim said Owen had rolled up a £5 note with cocaine in it and offered her some. She told how blood poured from her head after he hit her with the heater. He pulled her on to the bed and tried to force her to have sex.

She stormed out of the witness box at one point after Owen's lawyer suggested there was no attack but was persuaded to return to finish her evidence.

Owen denied harming the prostitutes, claiming he had consensual sex with one and engaged in a sex act with the other. He also denied robbery.

But he was convicted of attempted rape and indecent assault on the first victim and robbing the second.