A serial rapist, Oliver Wolstenholme, who targeted young women and underage girls over a nearly decade-long campaign of terror was sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison after a judge deemed him a threat to all females.
Oliver Wolstenholme, 38, using deceitful and manipulative tactics to entice victims into sexual encounters and attempted to extort one into engaging in sexual activity with him on his wedding night.
Oliver Wolstenholme, presently imprisoned at Wakefield maximum security prison in West Yorkshire, has been evaluated by probation officers as one of Britain’s most perilous offenders.
In a single episode, he sexually assaulted three adolescent girls sequentially after luring them to a park and intoxicating them with alcohol.
Oliver Wolstenholme, 38, using deceitful and manipulative tactics to entice victims into sexual encounters and attempted to extort one into engaging in sexual activity with him on his wedding night.
Oliver Wolstenholme, presently imprisoned at Wakefield maximum security prison in West Yorkshire, has been evaluated by probation officers as one of Britain’s most perilous offenders.
Another victim attempted suicide by overdose, tormented by her traumatic experience.
A third was strangled until she lost consciousness before he allowed his dog to bite her stomach.
Police charged Oliver 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 underwear.
It emerged one victim had reported Oliver Wolstenholme to police in 2014 but proceedings against him were dropped after she was too traumatised to testify against him.
At Bolton Crown Court, Oliver Wolstenholme – who has split up with his wife – admitted rape, assault and voyeurism charges relating to three women and was jailed for 29 years and nine months.
He will have to serve at least 20 years in jail before being paroled and he will be on licence until the year 2060.
The latest victims came forward after he was jailed for 22 years in November 2021 after being convicted of 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 relating 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 he is currently serving. He was spared a life sentence.
Sentencing Oliver 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 Oliver Wolstenholme via a gaming app.
He raped her when she visited his then home in Partington, Greater Manchester, 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 app in 2014 and they spoke online via Skype for a year before they met in person.
She was said to besotted with him but in one incident he shot her in the knee with his airsoft rifle and in another he strangled her until she lost consciousness before allowing his dog to bite her stomach.
He eventually raped her after booking them into a hotel before assaulting her with a sex aid. He also took secret video of her whilst she was naked on the bed and the then threatened to send it to her boss and post in on Facebook.
The third victim was sexually assaulted after she met Oliver 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.
‘Oliver Wolstenholme 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 unsuccessful attempt to pressure her to have sex with him on his wedding night. He continued to grind her down with requests for sex.’
Oliver Wolstenholme targeted three of his other victims aged between 14 and 15 after meeting them at Tesco in nearby 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 byone 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 Oliver 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 Oliver Wolstenholme raped her on the front passenger seat.
After Oliver 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.
Oliver 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.
Oliver Wolstenholme only ran off when she struggled, screaming for help.
Defence counsel Neil Usher said: ‘There is precious little by way of mitigation in his case.
‘Each of these cases are dreadful and the effects on victims is plain from their statements.
‘No issue is taken as to the assessment that he presents a very serious risk of serious sexual offending. Oliver Wolstenholme is a dangerous offender and will be no doubt for many years to come.’
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