A TONBRIDGE taxi driver was jailed for eight years – more than a quarter of a century after he raped a woman who has since died.

A jury at Canterbury Crown Court found 46-year-old Martin Eke, of Douglas Road, guilty at the end of a two-day trial. In 1986 he had pounced on 21-year-old Jacqueline Spriddell as she walked home from a night out.

Jailing Eke on Thursday, Judge Adele Williams said the attack had been "cruel, pitiless and degrading".

She added that, although the case was so long ago, the evidence had been compelling.

Eke was prosecuted after the Cold Cases squad at Kent Police re-visited the file years after the attack. They used DNA techniques not available in the 1980s to identify Eke as the rapist.

The court heard Miss Spriddell had been in a pub with friends before the attack on waste ground in Folkestone. She was heading to her home in Shornecliffe Road.

She died in November 2000 from renal failure after suffering from serious kidney problems having undergone a kidney transplant.

She effectively gave evidence from beyond the grave when a statement she made shortly after the attack was read to the court 12 years after her death.

She said she saw a man in front of her in Beachborough Road, but lost sight of him near a railway bridge. Minutes later, she saw him again near bushes, and assumed he was urinating.

However, she claimed the man then grabbed her and got her in a bear hug. She said he put his hand over her mouth and told her "I only want your handbag".

Prosecutor Andrew Collings said when Eke found she had only £5 he demanded a kiss and, when she warned him she would scream, he demanded sex or oral sex.

Eke later admitted he had sex with a woman but claimed it was consensual.

Jailing Eke, Judge Williams said that although justice had come too late for Miss Spriddell to appreciate it, her family had seen Eke finally jailed.