Neil Trennan has failed to return to prison in Boston, Lincolnshire, more than 20 years after brutally assaulting a lecturer with a brick in a college toilet while on day release
A manhunt is underway for a “dangerous” rapist who poses a “real danger” to the public after he failed to return to prison – more than two decades after beating a lecturer while on day release.
Neil Trennan, 60, is said to “pose a real danger to members of the public” after he was released for the day from North Sea Camp in Boston, Lincolnshire, on temporary licence, but did not return to his meeting point on Thursday. The prison is a Cat D open establishment. Now the Mirror can reveal he was handed a life sentence in 1991 for raping a woman in Sheffield having first knocked her unconscious using a weight lifting dumbbell.
And in 2002 he slipped away from a prison escort and attacked Sally Rust-Andrews in a toilet at Norwich City College in 2002. Trennan, who was serving a life sentence and on a sex offender treatment programme at Wayland Prison for rape, had fled from his guard after he turned his back momentarily to use a cashpoint. It was only the second day release he had been granted in 12 years in jail.
Trennan, who was 38 at the time, went to city college and waited in the ladies’ toilets where he attacked Ms Rust-Andrews with half a brick. Her screams raised the alarm and Trennan was arrested as he fled. The lecturer had eight stitches in her head and suffered PTSD.
Today Lincolnshire Police says it believes Trennan caught a Nottingham-bound train from Boston Train Station at about 10.49am. Det Insp Dave Penney said: “Trennan is a dangerous individual; we need to find him as soon as possible. He is a convicted rapist and may pose a real danger to members of the public.”
There were a number of stops or directions Trennan could have taken having boarded the train, the police said. The force added that he was wearing a black t-shirt and grey bottoms but it is unknown if he would have changed his clothing.
Det Insp Penney said: “Our investigations have been ongoing, they are not contained just to Lincolnshire and we are doing everything we can to locate him.” Police have asked anyone with information to contact them and not to approach him.
In 2011 it emerged Ms Rust-Andrews put in a claim to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, but was at first offered just £1,500 for her relatively minor physical injuries in 2004. As she launched a civil claim for compensation, barrister David Sanderson said the authority took 17 months to agree the payout and, when Ms Rust-Andrews asked for a review in the light of medical evidence of her mental suffering, more than three years passed before her award was upped to £8,650 in December 2007.
In February 2008 that was increased further to a total of around £35,000 by a tribunal. But at the appeal court her legal team argued that was still not enough and she should have been awarded up to £100,000 for her loss of future earnings alone.
However, three judges rejected Ms Rust-Andrews appeal, saying the tribunal was entitled to rule that she was entitled to lost earnings compensation up until June 2010 but not after.
Lord Justice Carnwath, sitting with Lord Justice Stanley Burnton and Sir Robin Jacob, upheld the tribunal’s view that, had Ms Rust-Andrews undergone cognitive behavioural therapy, the chance of her ‘disabling mental illness’ being permanent would be reduced to below 50 per cent.
Mr Sanderson had earlier argued that Ms Rust-Andrews’ horrific experience interfered with her working life so badly that the tribunal was wrong to conclude that cognitive behavioural therapy would probably restore her full capacity to earn a living by June 2010.