A RAPE victim threatened with death pleaded with her attacker to make it quick if he was going to kill her.

Armed with a hammer, John Bevan had pushed his way with his victim into the home of a “petrified” 77-year-old widow, a stranger who had just returned from hospital.

There he took the victim upstairs and carried out his attack.

He stole about £60 from the OAP, who has a heart pacemaker, and drove off in her car, a four-hour ordeal ending in a forest where the raped female was dumped last May.

Judge Merfyn Hughes QC heard the story at Caernarfon Crown Court where Bevan, 46, formerly of Mold, was jailed for an indefinite term for public protection for false imprisonment, kidnap, rape and assault.

The judge said a report confirmed Bevan was in the high risk category of causing serious harm and he had very little victim empathy or insight into why he committed such offences.

John Philpotts, prosecuting, said at one stage during a car journey which extended from Flintshire to Llangollen and at speeds up to 80mph, the car rolled down a bank on its side.

“She (the rape victim) thought she was going to die.”

Eventually he tied her up in an abandoned van and said he would kill her. “She said do it quickly rather than slowly,” said Mr Philpotts.

She managed to run down a lane barefoot, through nettles, until she reached safety in Rhydymwyn village.

The next day Bevan handed himself in to police.

When the case was adjourned last week defence barrister Maria Masselis said: “Nothing I say in mitigation is intended to undermine the serious nature of the offending. Remorse doesn’t capture what he feels about what he’s done. He’s beside himself.

“It’s a burden he will have to carry with him for the rest of his life.

“They are clearly dreadful offences and the defendant does not wish me to say otherwise. In fairness to him, he’s never sought to excuse himself or justify his behaviour. He does accept full responsibility.”

Mr Philpotts said when Bevan was 14 he was sentenced to a care order for attempted rape. Between 1982 and 1988 he served sentences for grievous bodily harm and assault.

He pleaded guilty to rape, kidnap, false imprisonment and assault.

Judge Hughes said in the abandoned van his victim, with “remarkable courage”, tried to escape and was then tied to the steering wheel with her own tights.

Eventually she did get away at the end of an ordeal during which she had been driven “somewhere in North Wales” for a number of hours.

Bevan said nothing before being led away to start his sentence.