Landlady ordered to pay damages to serial rapist for clearing his flat after arrest

Thomas Cope, 55, tied up his teenage victim with a computer mouse cord and raped her twice before letting her go after an eight hour ordeal.

He was jailed for life after a judge branded him 'a serious danger to women'.

Serial rapist Thomas Cope has sued his former landlady for wrongful eviction

But in a publicly funded county court case, the former debt collector sued Melody Goymer for clearing his flat - where he raped his latest victim - following his arrest.

The court ruled grandmother Mrs Goymer, 60, had unlawfully terminated Cope's tenancy by failing to seek a court order for possession of the flat in Hailsham, Sussex.

The judgement was described yesterday as 'shocking' and 'sickening' by critics, including a rape charity.

Cope was flanked by two prison custody officers as he complained that items including a 20in TV, computer desks, coffee table and tin openers had been put into storage.

Landlady Melody Goymer removed Cope's goods days after he was arrested

He admitted Mrs Goymer, who rents three properties in the Eastbourne area, was a 'very good' landlady but said he had been 'angry and stressed' by the eviction.

'It has caused problems between me and my wife,' he told Eastbourne County Court.

'On two or three occasions she has stopped phoning and writing to me because of it. 'I've just been banging my head against a brick wall since I've been in prison.'

Cope - who was living alone in the flat after moving out of the home he shared with his wife, Ann - was first jailed for rape for four years in 1976.

He received eight years for rape in 1979, five years in 1985 for indecent assault and another ten years for attempted rape in 1990.

He is currently serving a life sentence for attacking a 19-year-old woman on April 25, 2006.

Judge Austin Issard-Davies, sitting at Hove Crown Court in Sussex in June last year, ordered him to serve a minimum of four-and-a-half years for the latest offence before being considered for parole.

He told Cope: 'I have no doubt that you are a serious danger to women.'

Mrs Goymer told Eastbourne County Court how she cleared Cope's two-bedroom flat days after he was remanded in custody in December 2006.

She said: 'We had no contact from him and didn't know where he was so we used a pass key to get into the flat which we found in a terrible condition.

'It looked as if he had done a runner and just left. There was no electricity and the food in the fridge freezer had rotted away.'

Deputy District Judge Smith awarded Cope £750 and ordered Mrs Goymer to return his goods within 14 days during the hearing on Thursday.

He said: 'He was not thrown out on the street and he may not have been physically removed but his belongings were.

'What would have happened if he had been released on bail or found not guilty? He was unlawfully evicted and his possessions were wrongly removed and wrongly retained.'

The amount of costs to be awarded to Cope is to be decided at a later date after the judge said the £13,000 claimed by his lawyers was 'awfully high'.

Afterwards, a Rape Crisis spokeswoman said: 'This case is shocking.

'We are outraged that the same system that can reduce the compensation for victims of rape can financially compensate a serial rapist who has committed violent sexual crimes against women over the last 20 years.'

A TaxPayer's Alliances spokesman said: 'All right-minded people will be sickened their hard-earned tax is being used in this way.

'This case demonstrates how courts routinely waste money and how judges often make judgments that go against natural justice.'