Sadistic torturer convicted of 11 more offences in his gruesome reign of terror against women

Andrew Delsol, 55, made a chilling threat to murder one of the survivors of his 30-year campaign of sickening violence as he was led down to the cells at Bradford Crown Court.

• Brutal Bradford rapist jailed for life

He is currently serving a 13-year extended sentence imposed in 2015 for terrorising a young mother he locked in an attic flat in Bradford.

Yesterday afternoon, Delsol was convicted by a jury of 11 offences against two vulnerable women he abused up to 30 years ago.

At 2pm, he will be sentenced by Judge Colin Burn for four offences of rape, a Section 18 wounding, living on the earnings of prostitution, two offences of making a threat to kill, two offences of indecent assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

One of the women, who bravely gave her evidence in court without screens around the witness box, was sitting in the public gallery when Delsol threatened: “I’ll murder that bitch,” as he was taken to the cells by two dock officers.

During the two-week trial, the first woman told how she was beaten and raped by Delsol when she was a teenage sex worker in Bradford.

The ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ abuser forced her to earn a £100 a day to leave in a drawer for him to collect.

He punched and kicked her, tried to drown her in the bath and indecently assaulted her with a vacuum cleaner pole.

She came forward after seeing Delsol’s photograph in the Telegraph & Argus when he was jailed in 2015.

“I don’t like the thought that he’s still out there doing this to young girls,” she said.

She met Delsol when she was 17 or 18 and was with him for a few months. He was smartly dressed, with two cars, a TR7 and a BMW.

He soon became controlling and demanding, encouraging her to buy red and black outfits and to wear high heels to attract customers for sex.

When Delsol found out that she was seeing clients behind his back, he turned up with a massive tree branch and demanded that she go home.

He slapped her, winded her with a punch and kicked her in the head.

“I did think he was a bit of a schizophrenic, but I think it’s more 'psychopath' now,” she said.

Another time, he accused her of sleeping with someone else and made her get into a cold bath.

“He tried to drown me a few times. He was holding my head under the water,” she said.

He then made her stand against the bathroom wall and indecently assaulted her with the vacuum cleaner pole before taking the bulb out of a light and trying to put her finger in it.

“Psychologically, I think he was just playing with my head really,” she said. “He was like a Jekyll and Hyde.”

Delsol battered the second woman round the head with a hairbrush and stabbed her in the leg with a screwdriver. He poured petrol on her before flicking a lighter and threatening to kill her if she went to the police.

She fled to several women’s refuges after she was repeatedly bitten and beaten black and blue.

The woman told how was smitten with Delsol. He was 6ft 4ins tall and physically beautiful, she said.

But he took control of her, mentally and physically. His eyes would mist up and go red when he attacked her.

Delsol would assault her in the woods where no one could hear her screaming.

He held her under water in a lake, threatened her with an axe, picked her up by the hair and punched her to the side of the head.

“He just battered me black and blue every day,” she said. “He needs putting away for life. He’ll carry on hurting people.”

The woman described Delsol as “evil and Narcissistic.”

“He was handsome and beautiful…but he was evil, is evil,” she said.

“I was fooled and I am not fooled easily. I was obsessed with him.”

In March 2015, Delsol was labelled a dangerous sadist and sentenced to eight years behind bars as part of a 13-year extended term of imprisonment.

He was found guilty at Bradford Crown Court of falsely imprisoning a woman in his attic flat in Gaythorne Road, West Bowling, over a four-month period.

He was also convicted of two offences of common assault, by causing her to fear violence from him, and one of illegally possessing a bladed martial arts weapon.

She told the court she lived in terror of Delsol. He was was nice and polite when they first met but he soon became aggressive and controlling.

He locked her in the small flat for 12 hours at a time, frothed at the mouth with rage and threatened to "bust her skull open."

When she escaped and sought refuge at Bradford's Trafalgar House Police Station, Delsol followed her with the martial arts weapon

Sentencing Delsol after that trial, Judge David Hatton QC told him: “She was terrified of you. Your threats were frequent, intense and savage. You deliberately and knowingly scarred her emotionally by your conduct. You frothed at the mouth with rage and threatened to break her skull.

"She has suffered and continues to suffer emotional trauma and these scars may never leave her."

In 2009, Lancashire Police issued a rarely used Violent Offender Order to protect women from Delsol.

He had been spotted arm-in-arm with a girlfriend while he was living in a hostel in Blackburn on prison licence. He was recalled to jail for keeping the relationship a secret from his supervising officer.

The police said at the time: “When he is released, he will pose a real and serious threat to the public, especially young females.”

Delsol was jailed for eight years at Carlisle Crown Court in 2002 after telling his teenage girlfriend that he would dismember her as he held her captive.

He admitted false imprisonment, wounding with intent, two assaults and making a threat to kill.

He made the teenager recite sick fantasies, including a false claim that she was sexually abused by her mother.

Delsol's bizarre behaviour turned sinister as he held her captive for six days, forcing her to endure a catalogue of threats and violence that included smashing her nose with his hand till the bone cracked, knifing her in the neck, kicking and punching her stomach, hurling her head-first into a wall and beating her with a length of wood.

In one terrifying episode, he brandished an axe, saying he would use it to dismember her.

In 1989, Delsol was jailed for 15 years at Sheffield Crown Court for brutal offences against a former Bradford woman.

She cowered in terror as he held her captive in an attic where he beat her with a stick, burned her body with a blowtorch and tried to make her drink bleach. He twice forced her out of the attic window with a rope around her neck.

The slightly built young mother was dragged naked across the floor with a rope round her neck during the catalogue of depraved violence.

At the time Delsol was on bail and awaiting trial for a sadistic attack on his first victim.

He was jailed at Leeds Crown Court for two years nine months for a string of assaults on the 25-year-old Bradford woman over a five-year period, including fracturing her skull.

A Bradford police sergeant who investigated the case said Delsol regarded brutality towards women as normal.

“I don’t believe he thought he had done anything wrong. It was a lifestyle he had led and he treated what he had done as the norm,” he told the Telegraph & Argus in October 1989.