A serial rapist who preyed on young women and underage girls over the course of nearly a decade was sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison after a judge declared him a risk to all females.
Oliver Wolstenholme, 38, used devious and manipulative behavior to lure victims into sex and even sought to blackmail one into having sex with him on his own wedding night.
Many of the young women were targeted online before meeting them in person by the wannabe cop, who dressed up in uniform and maintained a baton, an airsoft rifle, and a Samurai sword at home.
Wolstenholme, who is presently detained at Wakefield maximum security prison in West Yorkshire, has previously been identified as one of the country’s most dangerous offenders by probation officers.
He assaulted three teenage girls one by one in one instance after taking them to a park to ply them with booze.
Another victim took an overdose in a bid to kill herself due to being haunted by her ordeal.
A third was strangled until she lost consciousness before he allowed his dog to bite her stomach.
Police charged Wolstenholme after officers raided his home in Wythenshawe, Manchester and found more than 1,500 indecent images on electronic devices which featured children as young as a few weeks or months old.
In his car, officers also found a kitchen knife, gloves, duct tape, a face mask, bolt croppers and a fruit shoot bottle, containing a vodka-based drink he called a ‘glitterbomb’. Further searches of his property uncovered a haul of nitrous oxide and female knickers.
It emerged one victim had reported Wolstenholme to police in 2014 but proceedings against him were dropped after she was too traumatised to testify against him.
Wolstenholme acknowledged rape, assault, and voyeurism offences against three women at Bolton Crown Court and was sentenced to 29 years and nine months in prison.
He will have to serve at least 20 years in prison before being paroled, then he will remain on license until 2060.
The latest victims came forward after he was sentenced to 22 years in prison in November 2021 for rape, sexual activity with a child, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, meeting a child after grooming, possession of indecent images, and two counts of possessing offensive weapons in relation to four other victims.
All the charges relate to events between 2012 and 2019. The latest 29-year and nine month jail sentence will run concurrently to the 22 years is currently serving. He was spared a life sentence.
Sentencing Wolstenholme, Judge Thomas Gilbart told him: ‘This is a deeply troubling case.
‘You raped six victims and met a seventh after grooming. You used coercion and blackmail and threats with weapons. Your rapes almost became a systematic matter of routine.
‘I am satisfied you pose an ongoing risk of causing serious harm to others.’
The first victim, a college student was attacked in 2012 when she was 16 after she met Wolstenholme via a gaming app.
He raped her when she visited his then home in Partington and later sent her a text message: ‘You want to be careful on your way home from college. Hopefully you don’t get hit by a car.’
The second victim met Wolstenholme on a dating service in 2014, and they talked for a year on Skype before meeting in person.
She was believed to be madly in love with him, but in one occasion, he shot her in the knee with his airsoft weapon, and in another, he strangled her until she passed out before allowing his dog to attack her stomach.
After booking them into a hotel, he raped her before assaulting her with a sex aid. He also secretly recorded her naked on the bed and threatened to email it to her supervisor and put it on Facebook.
The third victim was sexually assaulted after she met Wolstenholme whilst he was engaged to be married and she shared an illicit kiss with him at a drunken house party.
Ben Lawrence prosecuting said: ‘She said she was sorry and that it should not have happened but the next day he used it against her.
‘He said: “Oh well you want me to tell everyone what happened last night?” and said he wanted to sleep with her.
‘He was aware she was vulnerable and concerned that she might lose her friends. He continued blackmailing her until she felt like she had no other option.
‘She thought he would stop once they did it and initially he thanked her and said it wouldn’t happen again.
‘But he would continue to pursue her and if she said “no” he told her he would make her life “hell”.’
Mr Lawrence added: ‘She had bought some lingerie hoping to use it with her own sexual partner on Valentine’s Day but the defendant saw and it and pestered her into wearing it for him.
‘She refused at first but he ground her down and she wore the lingerie for him – but without her knowledge he had a hidden camera which filmed her.
‘He then considered he had even better material to blackmail her into having more sex with him.
‘Whenever she said “no” he sent her the video threatened to post it on social media and also threatened to send it to her mother.
‘He sent it to her the day before his wedding and made an unsuccessfully attempt to pressure her to have sex with him on his wedding night. He continued to grind her down with requests for sex.’
Wolstenholme targeted three of his other victims aged between 14 and 15 after meeting them at Tesco in Baguley.
He offered one of the girls a cigarette and told her that he was a drug dealer then lied about his age.
He drove all three of the girls to a quiet car park, where he plied them with drugs and booze before raping each of the girls one-by-one and threatening to leave them in ‘the middle of nowhere’ if they did not do what he asked.
One of the victims tried to kick Wolstenholme off her but he was too strong for her and raped her on the back seat of his car.
Another was so drunk that she could not speak or move but was in tears as Wolstenholme raped her on the front passenger seat.
After Wolstenholme raped the third girl over the boot of the vehicle, he told the other girls that she was a ‘sket’.
He was arrested in December 2019 but after being bailed started to groom another 15-year-old girl on Snapchat whilst posing as a 17-year-old and using the name ‘T-Dog’.
In messages, he told the girl that he was ‘her man’ and repeatedly called her ‘babygal’ but during a subsequent meeting in a park she managed to escape by getting a friend to call her, pretending to be her mum.
In victim impact statements one of the women said she now struggled with relationships and trusting any men.
Another said: ‘I tried to kill myself with an overdose. I suffer from PTSD and night terrors and have to take sedative medication otherwise I would wake up screaming and feel suicidal.’
A third victim resorted to alcohol abuse and suffers from ‘routine’ panic attacks.
One of the teenage girls is said to often ‘shut down’ and is reluctant and scared to leave her family house.
Wolstenholme, who has 29 offences on his record, had been convicted of kidnap and possessing an offensive weapon in 2003 after seizing a woman at knifepoint in the street before trying to make her lie on the ground in a nearby garden.
He only fled when she screamed for help.
‘There is precious little by way of mitigation in his case,’ said defence counsel Neil Usher.
‘Each of these situations is heinous, and the effects on victims are clear from their testimony.
‘There is no dispute as to the assessment that he poses a very serious risk of serious sexual offense. He is a dangerous offender and will be for many years.’
source:ghanaianexpress.com
